Budget 2025 - Growth and Skills Levy

This government is investing in young people’s futures and reversing the sharp decline in apprenticeship starts amongst young people.

At the Autumn Budget, the Chancellor announced a package of additional investment to deliver the next phase of the Growth and Skills Levy.  

This investment will ensure we have the skills to power economic growth, roll out new flexibilities for business, deliver important reforms, and support young people to progress more quickly into skilled, well-paid jobs.

Key Changes

• From the next academic year, fully funding apprenticeships at non-levy payers (mainly small and medium sized businesses)  for eligible under 25 year olds
• We will work with employers and Skills England to streamline the range of apprenticeship standards available
• From the 2026/27 academic year we will begin to:
  • remove the additional 10% top up to accounts funds
  • change the expiry window for levy funds from 24 months to 12 months
  • change government’s co-investment rate to 75% (from 95%) for levy-paying employers once they have exhausted all their funds. This will mean levy-paying employers co-investment rate will be 25% if they have used all funds in their account.

Last updated on 27 November 2025 10:38