The current UK government has identified 8 key sectors for growth in the economy, including Advanced Manufacturing, and Defence (Department of Business and Trade, 2025a). At the same time, policy on apprenticeships has ensured that, they are employer-led (Winch et al., 2025), appropriate for adults (Pullen, 2024), and increasingly aligned to those key sectors (Pullen, 2025). These policies have moved the UK closer to Europe in policy terms, through the development of higher technical qualifications, but also in terms of public investment in key sectors like clean energy (Department of Business and Trade, 2025b) and defence (Department of Business and Trade, 2025c). The call for employers to be a key partner in the skills system aligns with the German dual-system, but the lack of social partners leaves a gap in advocacy on the side of workers. The UK Prime Minister recently announced a desire for 60% of young people to obtain a ‘higher level qualification’, but not specifically a degree (Starmer, 2025).  This increasing recognition of higher technical qualifications suggests that the UK could be moving closer to European models of vocational education and training.

Our research focuses on the development of accelerated degree apprenticeships in England. These apprenticeships exist for individuals who have completed a Level 5 qualification or previous apprenticeship and want to complete a stand-alone Level 6 apprenticeship and be awarded a Bachelors’ Degree. ‘Levels’ relate to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) levels, (UNESCO, 2011). We ask whether the existence of these programmes reflects England’s long-standing reluctance to adopt higher level technical education more common in European countries like Austria and Denmark (OECD, 2024). On the one hand, the existence of these programmes reflects a desire to enable individuals to achieve a degree level qualification, even after obtaining a Level 5 technical qualification. Yet, the relative scarcity of accelerated degree apprenticeships suggests that perhaps England is finally embracing higher technical education.

When assessing higher vocational education in England, we recognise human capital theory (Becker, 1993), which finds that returns, in terms of income, are higher for specific learning than for general education, particularly at higher levels. We also consider the rise of higher level vocational and technical education across Europe (e.g. Biemens et al., 2024) as a mitigation to graduate unemployment and skills mismatches (Pouliakas and Santangelo, 2026). In these circumstances, we might expect an increase in demand for Level 4 and 5 technical qualifications in England, despite only recently being widely available, as they allow individuals to learn specific skills to use in the workplace. A push by the UK government (Department for Education, 2019) to ensure that these higher technical qualifications are employer-led, means there is increasing recognition of these qualifications in the labour market. The increase in automation and Generative AI has impacted income returns in particular areas of education in recent years (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2022). Moreover, the rise in academic higher education has arguably failed in the promise of professional work and higher wages (Brown, Lauder and Cheung, 2020). In these circumstances, enabling individuals to gain a degree through an accelerated degree apprenticeship route should ensure their qualifications are most appropriate to meet labour market demand.

Our research began with online searches of accelerated degree apprenticeships available within Institutes of Technology, a structure combining vocational colleges, universities and employers, across England. These led us to identify only a small number of accelerated degree apprenticeships, and in contacting individuals, we found 4 types of accelerated degree apprenticeships available, with one in planning. The 4 areas were nursing, management, construction, and engineering, with another being developed for early years teachers. We interviewed individuals from 6 organisations across these five possible accelerated degree apprenticeships. Of these, 4 were universities delivering or planning to deliver an accelerated degree apprenticeship, one was a college delivering an accelerated degree apprenticeship accredited by a different university, and the last was a large employer offering accelerated degree apprenticeships in nursing. Interviews all took place online and were recorded and transcribed. We received ethical approval for the project from Sheffield Hallam University. As all these organisations were offering accelerated degree apprenticeships, they provided us with a clear understanding of the enablers and barriers to developing this kind of programme, and how they had, where possible, overcome these barriers. We presented our findings to an online meeting of the Institutes of Technology Network, followed by a discussion with attendees. This discussion helped us better understand some of the factors that had prevented universities or colleges developing accelerated degree apprenticeships, and in some cases where they had ceased offering them. We initially took a thematic approach to analysis, looking to clearly identify the enablers and barriers to offering accelerated degree apprenticeships. Our later analysis sought to better contextualise our data, viewing findings through the policy framework that enables such a programme to exist, as well as the alternatives available for employers and potential apprentices, including informal work-based learning. We further seek to adopt a comparative approach, situating this new programme within the wider development of higher vocational education across Europe.

We find that there are significant challenges in developing accelerated degree apprenticeships, within the policy that enables them to exist, the institutions delivering the apprenticeships, and the labour market. The importance of each of these factors varies between industrial sectors, in particular around labour market demand. For example, skills shortages in nursing led to very high demand, that dropped quickly after the skills needs were met. In another example, a group of employers situated close geographically, created sufficient demand for management apprenticeships, but this demand fluctuated dramatically as skills needs and priorities changed. The UK has seen a particular drop in apprenticeships at small and medium enterprises due to funding changes since 2017 (Pullen, 2024), which leaves the developers of these kinds of niche qualifications often reliant on consistent demand from one large employer, or a group of smaller employers. Policies around assessment also created significant barriers in certain sectors, with policy changes in this area imminent. The wider challenges of the English higher education system can make this kind of income diversification seem attractive initially, but the upfront investment and bureaucracy required creates a significant barrier. Despite this, we consider that pathways through higher technical education are becoming more common in specific sectors, as in the Netherlands (Biemans et al., 2024). We argue that the lack of adoption of accelerated degree apprenticeships more broadly is a result of an increased recognition of the value of higher technical qualifications. The increase in supply and engagement with employers has created qualifications that are genuinely valued by employers and delivered by appropriate training providers. This combination has led to a situation where an accelerated degree option does not generate large labour market demand, because, we suggest, employers are satisfied with staff who have Level 5 technical qualifications.

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