Glossary
Off-the-job training
Last updated
Part of our topic guide on Data & AI Apprenticeships.
Off-the-job training is the time an apprentice spends learning skills, knowledge and behaviours for their apprenticeship standard, away from their normal day-to-day duties. It's protected, paid time, with a minimum number of hours set per standard, and it's what the levy or government co-investment actually funds.
Why it matters
Get this wrong and you can lose funding, fail a Skills England audit, or land an apprentice at end-point assessment under-prepared. It's also the part employers most often assume they know and don't: off-the-job training isn't a training-room-only concept. Shadowing a senior colleague, working through a real project with a coach, or writing up a piece of analysis all count, provided it's building toward the standard rather than just doing the job. That's the whole point of learning by doing: the best off-the-job hours look like real work, assessed on real work, not lectures bolted onto a job.
One thing to get straight early: off-the-job hours must happen in the apprentice's normal, paid working hours. It isn't unpaid homework, and it isn't something they catch up on evenings and weekends. Build it into the working week from day one.
How it works
- Who sets the hours: each apprenticeship standard has its own minimum off-the-job hours, published in the apprenticeship funding rules. This replaced the old flat "20% of contracted hours" rule for new starts from 1 August 2025. Hours vary a good deal by standard and level, so check the specific standard rather than assuming a number.
- The floor: whatever the standard requires, no apprenticeship can fund below 187 hours of off-the-job training, even after any reduction for prior learning.
- Prior learning: if an apprentice already holds some of the knowledge, skills or behaviours the standard covers, that content, and the funding for it, can be reduced. It never adds extra funding, and it can't take the total below the 187-hour floor.
- Pre-August-2025 starts: apprentices who started before 1 August 2025 still work to the legacy 20%-of-contracted-hours rule, not the new per-standard hours.
- Who pays: off-the-job training is funded the same way as the rest of an apprenticeship: through the employer's Growth & Skills Levy (formerly the Apprenticeship Levy) funds, a levy transfer from another employer, or government co-investment for employers below the £3 million pay-bill threshold. It cannot be paid for from wages, travel or other employment costs.
- What it isn't: off-the-job training is distinct from the funding mechanics that pay for it and from the assessment that checks it: see levy transfer and co-investment for how the money actually works.