Traineeships are a combination of education, training and work placements that help young people get the skills and experience they need to get an apprenticeship or a job.
Traineeships include a work placement with an employer that can last from 6 weeks up to 1 year, though most traineeships last for less than 6 months.
Traineeships are open to 16 to 24 year olds (or 25 year olds with an education, health and care (EHC) plan). A basic weekly structure of a traineeship may be 1 day per week with a training provider and 3 or 4 days a week with the employer.
Benefits of a traineeship to employers
A traineeship:
- Is flexible, can be sector focused and is funded by the government
- Gives your current employees experience in training and mentoring
- Allows you to design a programme that suits both the needs of your business and the needs of the trainee
- Can help you increase capacity and productivity
- Can help you develop a loyal and talented workforce
- Allows you to help tackle youth unemployment
- Is a route into an apprenticeship
- Allows you to get to know and work with young people prior to recruiting apprentices.
Your responsibilities
When offering a traineeship work placement you need to provide:
- Safe, meaningful and high-quality work experience
- A minimum of 70 hours of work experience - but no more than 240 hours for benefit claimants - over the duration of the traineeship (maximum of one year) and as agreed with the traineeship provider
- Constructive feedback and advice to the trainee
- An interview for an apprenticeship or job in your business at the end of the traineeship if one is available
- An exit interview at the end of the traineeship with meaningful written feedback if no job is available
- The traineeship is free to your business, but you may support trainees with expenses such as transport and meals.
Designing the traineeship programme
The training provider will assess the needs of the trainee. Trainees may need pre-employment training before starting work experience.
You and the provider will then plan and agree the days the trainee works and how the programme will be delivered.
Traineeships can be flexible. You may be able to adjust the programme as you go to make sure you and the trainee get the most out of it.
After the traineeship programme
You should:
- Offer the trainee an interview at the end of the programme if a job or an apprenticeship is available in your business
- Provide an exit interview with meaningful written feedback if no job or apprenticeship is available
- Act as a referee for the trainee for any future roles they apply for.
Set up a traineeship
For advice and support on setting up a traineeship you can contact the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) by:
You will also need to work with a training provider to design your traineeship. They will publicise the traineeship for you to help you recruit a young person.