As we celebrate National Apprenticeship Week 2026 and highlight its theme of Skills for Life, it’s a timely moment to consider on why leadership apprenticeships – particularly at Level 3 and Level 5 – are so often described by learners as career-defining.
When talking to our leadership apprentices, we often hear some variation of “I wish I’d had this earlier” as they reflect on picking up knowledge and skills they know will be useful for years to come. For many, it’s to do with formalising and adding consistency to their practice – removing the guesswork and helping it to feel more like a craft.
The skills they had to learn the hard way
Many leaders step into their roles because they’re good at their job, not because they’ve been prepared and trained to lead teams and manage people. When looking back, our apprentices often say they struggled early on with:
- Providing constructive or developmental feedback
- Managing performance without being ‘conflict avoidant’
- Prioritising when everything feels urgent
- Appreciating and understanding their impact on others
- Making timely decisions even without complete information
These capabilities have a profound effect on the vital relationships that leaders need to build all around them and trying to develop them organically can be a huge challenge, not to mention creating a variable and uncertain experience for their teams and reports.
Level 3: Skills for Life at the start of a leadership journey
Employers enrolling learners on our Level 3 (Team Leader) apprenticeship often want to provide inexperienced or developing managers with structure and reassurance. The focus is on breaking leadership and management down, potentially for the first time, into clear behaviours and practical actions, not just broad expectations and responsibilities.
Our apprentices on these programmes tell us of rapid growth and improvement in:
- Self-awareness: better understanding their natural leadership style and the agency they have in choosing which type of leader to be – both broadly, for the remainder of their career, and within certain situations, too
- Priority management: progressing from ‘doing a lot of doing’ to ‘doing a lot of managing’
- Supporting others: feeling more assured in providing feedback, better able to motivate and more aware of the support people may need to develop and thrive
These changes don’t just make someone a more effective, they also make work feel less intimidating, responsibility less daunting and leadership more intentional. That’s why learners consistently tell us these skills couldn’t come quickly enough and would have been invaluable from day one.
Level 5: Skills for Life that change how leaders think
By the time leaders are ready to join our Level 5 (Operations Manager) programme, they often have plenty of experience managing teams or functions – and workloads to match! What they often lack, however, is the opportunity to step back and reflect and this is where they usually report the biggest changes.
They benefit most from developing knowledge, skills and behaviours around why decisions are made and what matters in the bigger picture:
- Strategic thinking: ‘zooming out’ to see the bigger organisational picture
- Stakeholder management: building connection and influence beyond their immediate network
- Leading change: communicating and delivering successful projects of organisational change
At this level, our apprentices tell us they are learning to stop reacting and start leading in a more planned and strategic way. Again, the overall reflection is similar – “I wish I’d learned to think like this earlier!”
Skills for Life – for the long term
As a method of professional learning, apprenticeships are so effective because development is both continuous and set within an existing role. This means it is applied directly to genuine operational challenges, reinforced through reflection & coaching, and assessed through demonstrable changes in competency. All told, this makes for durable changes and embedded knowledge, which stand the test of time.
Perhaps most importantly, leadership apprenticeships deserve their place in the Skills for Life conversation because the skills they develop aren’t tied to a single role or organisation. Whether it’s communication, coaching or simply personal confidence, they stay with the individual, shaping personal and professional success for years to come.
Leadership development you’ve already paid for
Leadership apprenticeships are one of the most accessible ways to invest in long-term leadership capability — with extensive funding available and costs often fully covered.
If you’re exploring practical, high-impact development for new and experienced leaders alike, our Level 3 and Level 5 programmes deliver skills your people will use now and value forever.
Get in touch to explore eligibility, funding and next steps.