Apprenticeship Agreement Template (UK)
Updated on 8 August 2026
In England an apprenticeship runs on two documents, not one. The apprenticeship agreement is the contract between the employer and the apprentice — a contract of employment recording the job, the hours, the pay and the terms. The apprenticeship training plan is the separate tripartite document agreed between the employer, the training provider and the apprentice, setting out the training to be delivered and each party's commitment to it. Confusing the two is the most common mistake in free apprenticeship templates, and the funding rules expect both to exist and to agree with each other.
This template is the employment side of that pair, written to sit alongside the training plan rather than replace it. It fixes the defect in the source template it replaces: that document has the apprentice pay the employer a monthly participation fee, makes them buy their own tools and examination sittings, and contains no wage clause at all. A UK apprentice is an employee who must be paid at least the National Minimum Wage rate that applies to them, and the training is the employer's obligation, not a service the apprentice buys.
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Apprenticeship Agreement
This Apprenticeship Agreement is made on between of (the Employer) and of (the Apprentice), born . It is a contract of employment and sets out the individual employment arrangements for the apprenticeship.
- Apprenticeship standard:
- (level )
- Training provider:
- Start date:
- Expected end date:
- Job title:
- Place of work:
1. The Apprenticeship and the Training Plan
The Apprentice is employed to work and to train towards the apprenticeship standard named above. A separate apprenticeship training plan, agreed between the Employer, the Apprentice and the training provider, sets out the training to be delivered and each party's commitment to it. This Agreement covers the employment terms; where the two documents record the same figure, such as planned hours, they must be kept consistent.
2. Duties
The Apprentice's main duties are: . The Apprentice will carry out those duties with reasonable skill and care, follow the Employer's policies and reasonable instructions, and take an active part in the training and assessment required by the apprenticeship.
3. Hours and Off-the-Job Training
The Apprentice's contracted hours are per week, worked . The apprenticeship requires of off-the-job training, delivered as follows: . The Employer will release the Apprentice for that training. Time spent in off-the-job training and with the training provider is working time and is paid.
4. Pay
The Apprentice is paid per hour, . The rate will be reviewed whenever the National Minimum Wage rates change and whenever the rate applicable to the Apprentice changes, and will never fall below the rate the Apprentice is legally entitled to.
The Apprentice currently qualifies for the apprentice National Minimum Wage rate, which applies to apprentices under 19 and to apprentices aged 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeship. The Apprentice will move to the age-related rate on , and the Employer will apply that increase without the Apprentice needing to ask.
No fee, deposit, tuition or other charge is payable by the Apprentice for this apprenticeship, and no deduction will be made from the Apprentice's wages for training, tools, personal protective equipment, examination or assessment costs.
5. Holiday, Sickness and Other Entitlements
The Apprentice's holiday entitlement is , including bank holidays where the Employer's policy provides for them. Sick pay arrangements are: . The Apprentice is entitled to the statutory rights that apply to employees, including rest breaks and protection from discrimination.
The Employer supplies, at its own cost, the tools, equipment and personal protective equipment the Apprentice needs to do the job safely, together with the health and safety training required for the tasks assigned.
6. Support, Supervision and Review
The Apprentice's workplace mentor is , who is responsible for day-to-day supervision, guidance and safety instruction. Progress is reviewed with the training provider at: . The Employer will take part in those reviews and will raise any concern about progress promptly rather than at the end of the programme.
7. Confidentiality and Work Product
The Apprentice will keep the Employer's confidential information confidential during and after the apprenticeship. The Apprentice assigns to the Employer all rights in work, materials and inventions created in the course of their duties under this Agreement, excluding anything created before it began and anything created outside working hours without using the Employer's equipment, materials or confidential information. The Apprentice may keep and show their own portfolio work required for assessment.
8. Probation, Notice, Discipline and Grievance
The first is probationary, during which either party may end this Agreement on one week's written notice. After probation, written notice applies, subject always to the statutory minimum. The Employer's disciplinary and grievance procedures apply, and the Apprentice may raise a concern about the apprenticeship with the Employer or the training provider without detriment.
If the employment ends before the apprenticeship is completed, the Employer will notify the training provider promptly so that the Apprentice's record is updated and any transfer of the apprenticeship to another employer can be arranged.
9. Completion
On completing the required training and the end-point assessment, the Apprentice receives the apprenticeship certificate for the standard. What happens to the Apprentice's employment afterwards is: .
Employer
Date:
Apprentice
Date:
Parent or guardian (if under 18)
Date:
The agreement, the training plan and the funding rules
GOV.UK publishes a template apprenticeship agreement and describes it as a document that must be signed at the start of the apprenticeship, confirming the individual employment arrangements between the apprentice and the employer, and supporting the apprenticeship funding rules. That is the role this template plays. It does not cover the training commitments, which belong in the training plan agreed with the provider.
Getting the two documents to agree matters practically. The planned hours have to appear consistently on the training plan, the apprenticeship agreement and the provider's return, and an initial assessment has to be documented and feed into the plan. A template that invents its own hours figure, or leaves the working week blank, creates a mismatch that surfaces at audit rather than at signing.
This template therefore records the apprenticeship standard, the training provider, the planned working hours, the off-the-job training hours and the end-point assessment arrangements as fields — so the employment contract states the same figures the training plan does.
Off-the-job training changed in August 2025
Off-the-job training is a statutory feature of an English apprenticeship, and how it is measured changed for apprenticeships starting from August 2025. The long-standing 20% of working hours calculation no longer applies to new starts. Instead each apprenticeship standard has a fixed minimum number of off-the-job training hours published up front, and those hours can be delivered over any timeframe subject to the programme's minimum duration — which the funding rules express as at least 8 months and at least 187 hours.
That is a genuine improvement for part-time apprentices, whose 20% figure used to shrink with their working week, and it is a change any template written before August 2025 will get wrong. This template asks for the published hours figure for the standard being followed rather than embedding a percentage.
The employer's obligations around that training are stated as obligations: releasing the apprentice for the agreed hours, not treating training time as an inconvenience to be recovered later, and paying for the training time as working time.
Pay: the apprentice rate, and what it does not cover
The apprentice is a worker. The National Minimum Wage has a specific apprentice rate, and the eligibility for it is narrower than employers often assume: it applies to apprentices who are under 19, and to apprentices aged 19 or over who are in the first year of their apprenticeship. Once an apprentice aged 19 or over completes the first year, the ordinary age-related minimum wage rate applies, and the increase is not optional.
This template therefore asks for the hourly rate, the basis on which it was set, and — importantly — the date the apprentice moves to the standard rate, so the uplift is diarised in the contract rather than missed. It also states expressly that time spent in off-the-job training and at the training provider counts as working time and is paid.
The clause that does the most work is the one the source template inverts: no fee, deposit or tuition charge is payable by the apprentice, and nothing may be deducted from their wages for training, tools, personal protective equipment or assessment. Where an employer wants to recover training costs if an apprentice leaves early, that is a separate question with its own legal difficulties, and this template does not slip a training-cost clawback into a document the apprentice signs on day one without flagging it.
Ending an apprenticeship, and what happens at the end
An apprenticeship agreement under the English statutory framework is a contract of employment, so the ordinary employment protections apply — notice, unfair dismissal once the qualifying period is met, discrimination protection from day one, and the statutory disciplinary and grievance framework. The template accordingly uses ordinary employment mechanics: a probationary period, contractual notice, and a disciplinary and grievance route, rather than the source template's silence.
It also handles the tripartite reality of an apprenticeship ending. Where the employment ends, the training arrangement with the provider does not automatically resolve itself, and the template requires the employer to notify the provider so the apprentice's record and any transfer of the apprenticeship can be dealt with properly.
At completion, the apprentice goes through end-point assessment and receives the apprenticeship certificate for the standard. The template records what happens next in employment terms — whether the apprenticeship converts to a substantive role and on what terms — because leaving that unsaid is a routine cause of disputes in the final months.
Clause-by-clause guide
- Parties, start date and continuous employment
- Names the employer and apprentice, the start date and whether earlier service counts towards continuous employment, which affects notice and statutory rights.
- Apprenticeship standard and training provider
- Records the standard being followed, its level, the training provider and the expected end date, matching the tripartite training plan.
- Job title, duties and place of work
- The apprentice is an employee doing a real job. The duties clause describes that job as well as the learning attached to it.
- Hours and off-the-job training
- Contracted weekly hours plus the published off-the-job training hours for the standard, with training time confirmed as paid working time.
- Pay and the rate change date
- The hourly rate, pay frequency, and the date the apprentice moves from the apprentice rate to the age-related rate so the uplift is not missed.
- No cost to the apprentice
- No fee, deposit or tuition charge, and no deduction from wages for training, tools, protective equipment or assessment. The mirror of the source template's fee clause.
- Holiday, sickness and other entitlements
- Statutory holiday and the employer's sick pay arrangements, recorded as ordinary employment terms rather than left out.
- Supervision, mentoring and review
- Names the workplace mentor, sets review points, and records the employer's commitment to release the apprentice for training.
- Probation, notice, discipline and grievance
- Ordinary employment mechanics, plus a duty to notify the training provider if the employment ends before completion.
- Completion and what follows
- End-point assessment, the certificate for the standard, and whether the role continues afterwards and on what terms.
UK compliance checklist
Written for England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own apprenticeship systems with different documents and funding rules.
Sign the apprenticeship agreement at the start
GOV.UK publishes a template apprenticeship agreement and states it must be signed at the start of the apprenticeship, confirming the individual employment arrangements between apprentice and employer and supporting the apprenticeship funding rules.
GOV.UK - apprenticeship agreement templateAgree a separate training plan with the provider
The training plan is the tripartite document between employer, provider and apprentice setting out the training to be delivered and each party's commitment. Planned hours must be consistent across the training plan, the apprenticeship agreement and the provider's return.
Use the published off-the-job hours, not 20%
For apprenticeships starting from August 2025 each standard has a fixed minimum off-the-job training hours figure published up front, replacing the 20% of working hours calculation. The programme must run at least 8 months and at least 187 hours.
Apprenticeship funding rules (Department for Education)Pay at least the correct National Minimum Wage rate
The apprentice rate applies to apprentices under 19 and to those aged 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeship. After that, the ordinary age-related rate applies. Diarise the change date in the contract.
GOV.UK - National Minimum Wage ratesPay for training time
Time spent on off-the-job training and with the training provider is working time under the apprenticeship and is paid. It is not a deduction from the apprentice's own time to be made up later.
Charge the apprentice nothing
No fee, deposit or tuition charge should be payable by the apprentice for the apprenticeship, and nothing should be deducted from wages for training, tools, protective equipment or assessment costs.
Treat it as a contract of employment
Notice, holiday, sick pay, discrimination protection, and the disciplinary and grievance framework all apply. Written particulars of employment must be given, and this agreement is the natural place for them.
Check the position for under-18s
Working time limits, rest breaks, night work restrictions and prohibited tasks for young workers apply on top of this agreement and are not displaced by a parent's or guardian's signature.
How to complete this apprenticeship agreement
- Record the standard and the provider. Enter the apprenticeship standard, its level, the training provider and the expected end date, matching what the training plan says.
- Set hours and off-the-job training. Enter contracted weekly hours and the published off-the-job training hours for the standard, rather than calculating a percentage.
- Set the pay and the change date. Enter the hourly rate, pay frequency and the date the apprentice moves from the apprentice rate to the age-related minimum wage.
- Name the mentor and the review points. Record who supervises the apprentice in the workplace and when progress is reviewed with the provider.
- Add the guardian signature if needed, then sign. Switch on the parent or guardian block for an apprentice under 18, download the DOCX or PDF, sign and give the apprentice a copy.
Frequently asked questions
Is an apprenticeship agreement the same as the training plan?
No, and both are needed. The apprenticeship agreement is the employment contract between employer and apprentice. The training plan is the tripartite document agreed with the training provider setting out the training and each party's commitment. The hours recorded in each should match.
Can an employer charge an apprentice for their training?
No employer-side template should be built that way, and this one is not. The apprentice is an employee, the training is the employer's obligation, and nothing should be deducted from their wages for training, tools, protective equipment or assessment. The source template this page replaces charges the apprentice a monthly fee and has no wage clause at all.
How much off-the-job training is required now?
For apprenticeships starting from August 2025 the requirement is the fixed minimum number of hours published for that apprenticeship standard, not 20% of working hours. Those hours can be spread over any timeframe as long as the programme runs at least 8 months and at least 187 hours.
What is the apprentice minimum wage rate and who gets it?
It is a specific National Minimum Wage rate for apprentices under 19, and for apprentices aged 19 or over who are in the first year of their apprenticeship. An apprentice aged 19 or over who has completed the first year moves to the ordinary age-related rate — which is why this agreement records the change date.
Is an apprentice an employee with normal rights?
Under the English statutory framework the apprenticeship agreement is a contract of employment, so notice, holiday, sick pay, discrimination protection and the disciplinary and grievance framework apply in the ordinary way. This template uses ordinary employment mechanics rather than leaving them out.
What happens if the apprentice leaves before finishing?
The employment ends under the notice or probation terms, and the employer must tell the training provider so the apprentice's record is updated and any transfer to another employer can be handled. The template makes that notification an express obligation rather than an afterthought.
Can we recover training costs if they leave early?
Training-cost clawback is a separate question with real legal difficulty — it has to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss rather than a penalty, and it interacts with minimum wage rules on deductions. This template does not bury one in the day-one contract; take advice before adding one.
Does this work in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?
Use it as a starting point only. Apprenticeships are devolved and each nation runs its own system, documents and funding rules, so the standards, training plan and off-the-job requirements described here are the English arrangements.
Related templates
Disclaimer
This template and guide are for general information only and are not legal or employment advice, and no solicitor has reviewed them. Apprenticeship rules are devolved and change regularly — check the current funding rules and minimum wage rates before you sign.
