The Law Society of England and Wales has called on the government to scrap plans to withdraw public funding for solicitor apprenticeships, warning of their impact on social mobility and the profession’s international competitiveness.

A final decision on funding for level 7 apprenticeships – which include the solicitor apprenticeship scheme – is expected in the coming weeks amid intense lobbying from across the profession in support of the existing funding arrangements.

Law Society of England and Wales president Richard Atkinson warned that the withdrawal of funding “may damage the growth prospects of the legal services sector and have a substantial negative impact on both social mobility and talent development”.

He added: “Maintaining the apprenticeships will not only aid in growing the legal services sector but ensure that England and Wales remain an international jurisdiction of choice.”

Critics of level 7 apprenticeships, which are the equivalent of a master’s degree and take six years to complete, argue they are not being taken up by school leavers and instead go to more experienced employees.

The government is replacing the apprenticeship levy on businesses by a growth and skills levy, which will channel funds into shorter and more flexible schemes, more tightly targeted at younger people without qualifications and training. 

However, supporters of the solicitor apprenticeship scheme from across the profession assert that it provides many young people from less privileged backgrounds with the only feasible route to qualification, enriching the profession with otherwise untapped talent.

Since the scheme’s launch in 2015, more than 3,000 solicitor apprenticeships have been taken up, with around 150 solicitors having qualified via this route to date.

The City of London Law Society’s City Century scheme, which was launched in 2023 and co-ordinates apprenticeships offered by more than 50 firms, says this training is almost exclusively taken up by school leavers.

Under the current arrangements, England and Wales employers who pay the apprenticeship levy receive back £27,000 for each level 7 apprentice they train, while employees not large enough to pay the levy receive a ‘co-investment’ of the same amount. 

Joanna Hughes, co-chief executive of City Century, said while City firms would continue supporting apprenticeships if funding was withdrawn “others – including small law firms and local councils serving our local communities – almost certainly will not be able to do so”.

She also feared the removal of funding would reinforce doubts about the credibility of solicitor apprenticeships, deterring “the very people that law firms wish to attract – high achieving school leavers from diverse backgrounds”.

This, she said, risked “undoing much of the hard work of City Century law firms in reassuring parents, teachers and students that there is genuine parity of esteem between the full-time university route and the solicitor apprenticeship route into City of London law”.