How much will I earn on an Advanced Apprenticeship?

Jack Collins
Last updated 09 Apr 2020

You’re considering an Advanced Apprenticeship. That’s great! You already know you’ll get an amazing amount of experience in the working world. You also know you’ll come out the other side with an incredibly useful qualification, and (fingers crossed) a permanent job! But the key thing you want to know is: are you going to be skint? Or are you going to earn the money you’ll need to survive and enjoy yourself outside of work?

What’s the lowest amount I’ll earn as an Advanced Apprentice?

Good news: as an Advanced Apprentice, you will definitely get paid. No doubt about it!

Like every other worker in the UK, the government will ensure you are paid a fair wage.

The National Minimum Wage has been put in place to make sure that any employer must pay you a certain amount of money per hour.

At the moment, however, the National Minimum Wage for apprentices is actually slightly lower than it is for non-apprentices.

If you are an apprentice under the age of 19, the minimum amount you must be paid is £4.15 an hour.

Also, even if you are over the age of 19, and still in the first year of your apprenticeship, you will also be entitled to the same rate of £4.15 an hour.

Once you turn 19 and have finished the first year of your apprenticeship, though, you will be entitled to the full National Minimum Wage.

You won’t be on the apprentice rate anymore and will be eligible for a higher minimum rate of pay.

The amount you’ll be paid will depend on how old you are. Here are the details:

If you are aged 19 or 20, you will be paid at least £6.45 an hour.

If you are aged 21, 22, 23 or 24, you will be paid at least £8.20 an hour.

If you are aged 25 and over, you will be paid at least £8.72 an hour.

While lots of employers will pay their apprentices the National Minimum Wage, many other employers will often offer to pay far higher salaries!

If you are an apprentice under the age of 19, the minimum amount you must be paid is £4.15 an hour.

What’s the average salary for an Advanced Apprentice?

According to Glassdoor, the average basic salary for an Advanced Apprentice in the UK is £15,576, which definitely corresponds with many of the salaries you’ll see on our apprenticeship job listings.

What’s the highest salary I could earn?

Plenty of Advanced Apprentice salaries go up to around £21,000 per annum. Right now, on our list of live Advanced Apprenticeship job opportunities, you’ll see plenty of jobs with salaries upwards of £18,000.

You can also earn these salary levels in all kinds of sectors, from construction and utilities to banking, finance and technology.

I’ve never earned an annual salary before. Can you break it down for me?

An annual salary sounds great, but how much cash will you actually have to play with?

Here’s an example:

If you earn a salary as an Advanced Apprentice of £18,000 per annum, and you work a standard 40-hour working week, i.e. 8 hours day, 5 days a week, this is how it breaks down:

- Monthly wage: £1,500
- Weekly wage: £346.15
- Daily wage: £69.23
- Hourly wage: £8.65

Will I be paid if I take a holiday?

The government ensures that all workers in the UK who work 5-days a week are entitled to a minimum of 28 days of paid annual leave a year.

This equates to 5.6 weeks of delicious paid holiday. High-fives all around!

Please note: many employers will include your 8 bank holidays in this 28-day allowance, so effectively you’ll be getting 20 days of paid holiday on top of your bank holidays. Still pretty good, right?

If you work part-time, so fewer than 5-days a week, you’ll still be entitled to a statutory amount of holiday. This will just be worked out proportionally (a.k.a. pro-rata).

Many employers will also offer an even more generous holiday allowance.

Will I pay tax?

As an apprentice, you will be an employee too, so you are not exempt from paying tax.

Just like everybody else, you’ll pay income tax and a National Insurance Contribution each month. Normally, this will be deducted from your monthly salary through the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system.

The basic tax rate for salaries up to £50,000 is 20%.

One extra piece of good news, though, is that you aren’t required to pay tax on £12,500 of your salary. This is your personal tax-free allowance. So if you earn £18,000, you will only be taxed on £5,500 of your annual salary.