Stoke-on-Trent City Council has already transferred £63,000 to 15 local businesses, creating 37 apprenticeship opportunities across the city. Not large corporations. Not academy trusts. Small, local employers. If you assumed apprenticeship funding was designed for bigger organisations with dedicated training budgets, this post is here to correct that assumption directly.
The system is called the Growth and Skills Levy (still widely referred to as the Apprenticeship Levy). It is confusing by design. But underneath the jargon, there are three concrete, locally available routes that could mean your next hire costs you close to nothing in training fees. In some cases, literally nothing.
This guide is written for small business owners in Stoke-on-Trent, North Staffordshire, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stafford, and the wider Staffordshire area. It covers the current rules, the local programmes running right now in June 2026, and what is changing from August 2026 onwards. There is a step-by-step section at the end if you want to skip straight to the action.
Does Your Stoke-on-Trent Business Actually Pay the Apprenticeship Levy?
Most do not. This is the first thing to understand, because the whole funding conversation changes depending on whether you are a levy payer or not.
The £3 Million Pay-Bill Threshold
According to HMRC’s official guidance, only employers with a total annual pay bill above £3 million are required to pay the levy. The rate is 0.5% of the pay bill, reported monthly through PAYE, and levy payers receive a £15,000 annual allowance to offset it.
To put that in context: a business with 70 full-time employees earning an average of around £28,000 per year would have a pay bill of roughly £1.96 million. Still well under the threshold. You would generally need closer to 100 to 130 employees on average local wages before the levy kicks in.
Why Most Stoke SMEs Are Non-Levy Payers
If you run a ceramics workshop, a small logistics firm, a health and social care provider, or a manufacturing unit in the Potteries with fewer than around 70 staff, you almost certainly do not pay the levy. That is good news, not a disadvantage. It means you access apprenticeship funding through a different route, and in some cases a better one.
Non-levy employers access government-funded apprenticeship training through what the Department for Education calls co-investment. Under the current 2025-2026 rules, the government covers the bulk of training costs within published funding band caps (ranging from £1,500 to £27,000 depending on the apprenticeship), and you contribute 5% of the remaining cost. But the three local routes described below can reduce even that 5% to zero.
The Three Ways a Non-Levy Staffordshire SME Can Fund an Apprentice in 2026
There is no single queue to join. There are three distinct routes, and they can be used in combination. Here is how each one works.
Route 1: The Staffordshire Business Support Pilot (100% Free Right Now)
In February 2026, Staffordshire County Council launched a Business Support Pilot delivered through the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Growth Hub. The pilot uses the County Council’s own unspent levy funds to cover 100% of apprenticeship training costs for eligible non-levy-paying SMEs. No co-investment required. No 5% top-up. Zero cost for the training element.
This is the most powerful option currently available for Stoke-on-Trent businesses, and it is live right now. Contact the Growth Hub on 0300 111 8002 or visit stokestaffsgrowthhub.co.uk to check whether your business and intended apprenticeship are eligible under the pilot criteria.
Route 2: Direct Levy Sharing from Stoke-on-Trent City Council
The city council runs its own Apprenticeship Hub, through which it can transfer unspent levy funds directly to local small businesses. The £63,000 figure already mentioned in this post came from exactly this route. Those 37 apprenticeship opportunities were created because a local authority chose to share its levy rather than let it expire unused.
If you are based in the city, this is a direct, practical option. Email the Apprenticeship Hub at apprenticeshiphub@stoke.gov.uk to register your interest and find out what is available for your sector and your intended role.
Route 3: The Staffordshire Levy Pledge and Skills Hub Brokerage
Not all levy funds sit with the public sector. Large private employers across Staffordshire accumulate levy credits they cannot always spend internally. The Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce runs a matching service called the Staffordshire Levy Pledge, which connects small businesses looking for training support with larger employers willing to transfer their unspent levy.
The Stoke-on-Trent Skills Hub, funded by Stoke-on-Trent City Council and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, provides the same impartial brokerage at no cost to the SME. If you want someone to do the matching work for you rather than approaching large employers directly, this is the service to contact. Reach the Skills Hub via Staffordshire Chambers at skillshub@staffordshirechambers.co.uk.
The Current Cost Structure: What You Actually Pay If You Miss the Free Routes
Understanding the fallback position is worth doing, even if you plan to access one of the free routes above. Things move. Pilots have eligibility criteria. Levy transfer pots run dry. If you end up outside the free routes, here is what you are actually paying.
How the 5% Co-Investment Works in Practice
Under the current 2025-2026 funding rules, the government pays 95% of the training cost up to the funding band cap for your chosen apprenticeship standard. You pay the remaining 5%. If the funding band cap for your apprenticeship is £12,000, the government covers £11,400 and you contribute £600 over the life of the apprenticeship. For most small employers, that is manageable.
Two additional financial benefits are worth knowing about, because they rarely get mentioned. First, a £2,000 employer incentive is available for eligible foundation apprenticeships. Second, and more significant for tight-margin Stoke businesses: apprentices under 25 earning below £50,270 annually are exempt from employer National Insurance contributions. On a full-time apprentice earning £22,000 per year, that NI saving alone is worth around £2,000 per year to you as the employer.
Why the 24-Month Fund Expiry Matters Right Now
Under the current rules, levy funds reserved through a digital Apprenticeship Service account expire after 24 months if unused. This means large employers who have been accumulating levy credits and not spending them are sitting on a shrinking window to transfer those funds to businesses like yours. Once the funds expire, they are gone.
From August 2026, that expiry window tightens to just 12 months. Any large Staffordshire employer sitting on unspent levy right now has a genuine financial incentive to transfer it before it disappears. That works in your favour if you approach them through the Skills Hub or Levy Pledge route before the rules change.
What Changes From August 2026 and Why Acting Now Helps
The national reform picture is shifting, and the timing matters. There are three changes coming that Stoke SMEs need to be aware of.
The Fully Funded Under-25 Rule Coming August 2026
According to the official DfE Growth and Skills Levy page, from the 2026-2027 academic year (starting August 2026), non-levy paying SMEs will receive 100% government funding for apprentices aged under 25. No co-investment. No 5% top-up. The training cost is fully covered.
This is a genuinely significant change. If you are planning to hire a 21-year-old into an advanced manufacturing or logistics role in North Staffordshire, waiting until August to start that process could mean paying nothing for the training rather than 5%. For a £15,000 funding band apprenticeship, that is a £750 saving. Not transformative on its own, but worth planning around.
Fund Expiry Tightens to 12 Months
The flip side of the August 2026 changes is that levy fund expiry shortens from 24 months to 12 months. Large local employers with unspent levy from the past year need to act before August or that money disappears. If you are approaching Staffordshire Chambers or the Growth Hub about a levy transfer, doing it before the summer is strategically smarter than waiting until autumn.
The £2,000 Employer Incentive Available from October 2026
From October 2026, non-levy employers will receive an additional £2,000 incentive payment per new apprentice aged 16 to 24. This stacks on top of the fully funded training for under-25s, making the financial case for taking on a young apprentice in Stoke-on-Trent from that point forward genuinely compelling. Plan your next hire around this timeline if you can.
Step-by-Step: How to Start Your First Apprenticeship in Stoke-on-Trent
If the above has clarified the picture and you want to move, here is the practical sequence. No jargon, no theory. Just what to do and who to call.
Step 1: Confirm Your Eligibility and Approach the Right Route
If your business employs fewer than around 70 people, you almost certainly do not pay the levy and you qualify as a non-levy employer. Your first question is whether your intended apprenticeship role and sector falls within the Staffordshire Business Support Pilot criteria. Priority sectors in Staffordshire’s Local Skills Improvement Plan include ceramics, advanced manufacturing, logistics, digital, and health and social care. If you are in one of those areas, you are well positioned for the pilot.
If you are outside those sectors or the pilot is full, the levy transfer routes via the city council or the Skills Hub are your next options.
Step 2: Contact the Growth Hub or Stoke-on-Trent City Council
For the Staffordshire Business Support Pilot: call the Growth Hub on 0300 111 8002. They will confirm pilot eligibility, explain what training costs are covered, and help you move forward.
For direct levy sharing from the city council: email apprenticeshiphub@stoke.gov.uk with a brief description of the role you want to fill and your business sector. For the Staffordshire Levy Pledge brokerage route: email the Skills Hub at skillshub@staffordshirechambers.co.uk.
Step 3: Work with Your Training Provider and Agree the Role
Once your funding route is confirmed, you will need to select a training provider. The Growth Hub or Skills Hub can help match you with a local provider if you do not already have one in mind. Staffordshire University is one option for higher-level apprenticeships. For trade and technical standards, there are a number of further education providers across the Potteries who work with SMEs directly.
You then agree the job role, the apprenticeship standard (the formal framework for your sector), the wage (which must meet the National Minimum Wage for apprentices at minimum), and the off-the-job training schedule with your provider. The administrative burden is real but manageable, and both the Growth Hub and the city council’s Apprenticeship Hub will support you through it.
The main thing that stops Stoke businesses from doing this is the assumption that it is complicated and designed for bigger organisations. It is not as simple as posting a job on Indeed. But three phone calls and two emails will get you further than most people ever go.
The Bigger Picture: Why Apprenticeships Are a Structural Decision, Not Just a Funding One
The mistake I see Staffordshire founders make most often when they think about hiring is treating it as a capacity decision when it is actually a culture and structure decision. Capacity you can fix with overtime. A poorly integrated new hire, with no onboarding system and no clear role in your operations, is a cost that compounds over months.
An apprenticeship is not just a funding mechanism. It is a way to build someone who knows your business, your systems, and your sector from the ground up. In 2026, with three local routes to zero or near-zero training costs and a national reform arriving in August that makes it even cheaper for under-25s, the cost argument is unusually strong. But the structural argument stands on its own regardless of the funding picture.
Once you have the apprenticeship funding sorted and someone new starting in your business, the next question becomes operational: how do you integrate them properly, what does your onboarding look like, and how do you build their role into your wider business structure without creating bottlenecks? That is where the real work starts.
If you want to talk through what that looks like for your specific business, I offer a free discovery call for Staffordshire businesses through Wright Advisory. I help with internal strategy, operations design, and financial planning for growth. Not grant-finding. Not generic coaching. A practical conversation about how to deploy a new hire well inside a growing operation. Book a free discovery call if that sounds useful.
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