Where are the Best Places to do Apprenticeship in the UK?

According to the RateMyApprenticeship (@ratemyapp_ship) analysis, Sunderland has the highest-rated apprenticeships in the UK, followed by Wolverhampton and Coventry 

New Census data shared on the 10th January 2023 by the Office of National Statistics has revealed apprenticeships were the highest qualification for 5.3% of people (2.6 million) across England and Wales.In England, 5.3% (2.4 million) of people reported an apprenticeship as their highest level of qualification, the data revealed this was slightly lower than in Wales (5.6%, 143,000).

Top 10 UK Locations For Apprenticeships

To offer applicants a fair overview, the online apprenticeship board, RateMyApprenticeship, has analysed the best places to do apprenticeships based on internal data that looks at location and salary to help steer candidates in the right direction.

According to the analysis, Sunderland has the highest-rated apprenticeships, with an average score of 9.68. This is followed by Wolverhampton (9.32) and Coventry (9.21). What’s more, Sunderland also has the highest-paying apprenticeships, with an average salary of £49,758. This is followed by Manchester at £43,884 and Southampton at £34,883. 

Co-founder of RateMyApprenticeship, Oliver Sidwell, comments:

“Kickstarting your career isn’t a simple choice and the reality is that there are locations across the UK that lend themselves better to certain industries to offer more fruitful opportunities. Understanding where these hotspots are can be a useful starting point that, when considered with salary and feasibility of relocating, can help make this big decision more informed.

“With more people looking to choose the apprenticeship route, over going to college or university full-time, there has been a growing need for help in finding these jobs and more tailored websites suited for those looking to get into an apprenticeship role.”

Google Searches for Apprenticeships are on the rise:

Increasing 84% in the last month, prospective learners across the UK are searching Google for ‘apprenticeships’ 19,000 times a month on average as they weigh up their options for their next career step.

Methodology for research:

We used RateMyApprenticeships non-work experience review data spanning across 2015-2022. We hand-picked major cities/towns, and analysed our results according to those selections. 

Salaries were given in a range of formats (i.e. annual, monthly, weekly). Average calculated salaries have taken these patterns into account – for example, a monthly salary of £1,000 was converted into a yearly salary (or ‘average calculated salary’) of £12,000. 

Reviews tagged with multiple sectors (i.e. ‘retail’ and ‘sales’)  were treated separately to ensure sector averages were correct. 

Caveats

Some locations (such as small towns, entries that only provided a UK region as opposed to a town or city etc.) were excluded from this dataset. Locations with less than 10 entries were also excluded.

Manual cleaning was only done on incomplete or missing location entries, and these entries were assigned to the nearest city / large town where possible.