Starting salaries for degree apprentices have risen by 8% this year, according to IDR’s latest study of pay and conditions for these trainee roles. This continues the upward trend in pay for these roles that we have observed over the last four years, alongside more sluggish pay growth for new graduates, that has narrowed the pay gap between the roles. Degree apprentices can now expect to earn an annual salary of around £20,500 on commencement of training – up by £1,500 from a median starting salary of £19,000 in 2021. Meanwhile the typical starting salary for traditional graduate roles remains unchanged since last year at £28,000. 

Pay progression during training

Pay for degree apprentices increases more steeply between commencement and completion of training than is the case for traditional graduate trainees. Salaries for degree apprentices typically grow by around £10,500 (or 51%) over the course of their training, compared to graduate programmes where pay at completion is only some 21% greater than the starting salary.

The minimum median salary on completion of a degree apprentice’s training in 2022 is £31,000. This is actually slightly lower than the figure in last year’s survey, which was £32,502. By contrast, the typical completion salary for traditional graduate programmes has increased since last year’s survey, rising from £32,500 to £34,000. While starting salaries for these roles have not grown much, the return of growth in completion pay is likely to reflect the current labour market, with fully-trained graduates commanding a greater premium than previously. Part of this might be connected to the fact that most graduates end up in management positions, to a much greater extent than degree apprentices.

Greater recruitment and retention challenges

The proportion of respondents describing their challenges with recruitment as ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ difficult has more than doubled since our last study. While nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents to our latest study said that they felt the recruitment of graduates was currently ‘not a problem’, the remaining participants (37%) regarded the situation as ‘difficult’ in some way, over double the proportion of employers describing their graduate recruitment in this way in the previous survey (15%). On retention, more than two-fifths (43%) said that at least some graduates failed to complete their training during the last 12 months. This is a larger proportion facing retention issues than we observed in 2021 when 36% had experienced graduates leaving programmes early.

We also asked participants about the state of recruitment and retention for all levels of apprentices within their organisation, covering any schemes at intermediate, advanced, higher and degree level. The outlook for recruitment of apprentices appears to be less difficult than for graduates, with nearly three-quarters (72%) reporting that recruitment of apprentices was currently ‘not a problem’. This is only slightly lower than the proportion agreeing with this statement in our 2021 study when 76% of participants described their apprentice recruitment in this way. Retention of apprentices is an economy-wide issue with only around half (54%) of apprentices completing their training in full - up from 43% in 2021.