Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of apprenticeship starts in (a) Quarter 1 of 2021, (b) Quarter 2 of 2021 and (c) Quarter 3 of 2021.

The latest published apprenticeship starts data covers the 2020/21 academic year and was published in November 2021 in the Apprenticeships and traineeships statistics publication: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships/2020-21.

Quarterly apprenticeship starts breakdowns for the 2021 calendar year show:

• 83,500 starts in the first quarter (January to March).
• 65,900 starts in the second quarter of the 2021 academic year (April to June).
• So far, for the third quarter (only July), 21,300 starts have been reported so far.

The attached file contains monthly breakdowns of starts for the entire 2020/21 academic year.

The first in-year apprenticeship starts data for the 2021/22 academic year (covering August to October 2021) will be published in January 2022.