Apprenticeship drop looms in Scotland as SNIPEF warns of funding gap

Plumbing and heating apprenticeship numbers in Scotland are set to fall sharply, as new research reveals one in three employers plan to stop recruiting, prompting fears of a widening skills gap across construction and building services.

The warning, issued in a new report from the Scotland and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation (SNIPEF), follows the launch of a £725m apprenticeship reform package in England.

The package includes the removal of the 5 per cent co-investment cost for small and medium-sized employers training apprentices under 25,  a measure that does not apply in Scotland.

SNIPEF’s Apprenticeships Under Pressure report, based on a survey of employers in the plumbing and heating sector, found that 33 per cent of firms did not expect to recruit any apprentices in the next three years.

The federation said this represented a clear break with historic recruitment patterns and warned of “serious concerns” about the sector’s ability to deliver essential decarbonisation and public safety work.

Employers identified funding constraints as the biggest obstacle to recruitment. Some 67 per cent cited limited support as a key barrier, followed by high wage costs (65 per cent) and supervision expenses (47 per cent).

More than three-quarters of employers rated current Scottish Government support as poor or inadequate, while 93 per cent said increased funding was the single most important change needed to make recruitment viable.

Fiona Hodgson, chief executive of SNIPEF, said Scotland risked “closing off one of the most effective routes into skilled work, good careers and genuine social mobility” unless support levels improved. “We cannot expect employers to absorb these pressures indefinitely,” she said.

Scottish businesses are also unable to access unused Apprenticeship Levy funds in the way that their counterparts in England can, and have no transparency over how Scotland’s share of the levy is spent. College training contributions have been frozen for almost a decade, SNIPEF said.

By contrast, the new reforms in England include 50,000 additional apprenticeship places, higher technical education funding, and mechanisms to reallocate levy receipts to frontline training.

The research found widespread employer support for the current four-year apprenticeship model, with more than 80 per cent backing it as the gold-standard route into the industry. Two-thirds of firms still employ apprentices, but smaller and larger employers alike reported mounting cost pressures.

SNIPEF also identified support for alternative training pathways, with 45 per cent backing pre-apprenticeship or college-first models to spread costs and improve job readiness. Most employers (82 per cent) said they preferred to recruit school-leavers aged 16 to 19.

The federation has called for equal cost-sharing between government and employers, alongside reform of levy access, to avoid long-term damage to the industry.

Source: SNIPEF press release