Record numbers of people are taking up and achieving an apprenticeship. Table 1 shows the number of apprenticeship starts in Lewes parliamentary constituency, East Sussex and Brighton and Hove local authorities.
2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 Lewes parliamentary constituency 240 240 230 210 280 280 East Sussex local authority 1,500 1,500 1,400 1,400 1,800 2,000 Brighton and Hove local authority 600 700 700 600 700 800 Notes: 1. Parliamentary constituency volumes are rounded to the nearest 10. Local authority figures are rounded to the nearest 100. 2. Parliamentary constituency and local authority are based upon the home postcode of the learner. 3. Information is not currently available on the size of the employer for apprentices. For the 2009/10 academic year, this information will become available on the ILR when a unique employer identifier will have to be provided by all employers of apprentices. Source: WBL/ER Individualised Learner Record
We can provide an estimate of the size of employers, nationally, that offer and have recruited apprentices from the National Employers Skills Survey (NESS). These data are based on repeated surveys of up to 79,000 employers across all business sectors in England. Table 2 shows information from the published 2007 National Employer Skills survey1 on the number of organisations that had any staff undertaking an apprenticeship in the 12 months prior to interview, by size of employer.
Percentage All employers 8 Number of employees of employer 2-4 5 5-24 10 25-99 15 100-199 18 200-499 25 500+ 33 1 http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/nat-nessurvey2007mainreport-may08.pdf accessed on 4 February 2010.