HomeHomeThe levels, the named apprenticeships from bricklayer to chartered surveyor, what they pay, how to start at 16 with or without GCSEs, when the schemes open and who runs them. Written by people who hire the people these apprenticeships produce.
An apprenticeship is a job with a qualification attached, not a course with a placement attached.
That is the part people get wrong, and it changes everything about how you should think about one. You are an employee from the first day: a contract, a salary, holiday, a manager, a payslip. Part of your paid working week is set aside for the training, which is delivered by a college or a university or a training provider your employer chooses, and at the end you sit an assessment and come out with a nationally recognised qualification and, more importantly, a work history.
A construction apprenticeship runs from the trades at Level 2, bricklaying, groundworks, carpentry, up to Level 6 degree apprenticeships in site management, quantity surveying and civil engineering that end in the same honours degree a full time student gets, with no fees and four years of experience. Ten years in, nobody on a site asks which route you took.
Three rules changed in 2025 and most of what is written online still has the old ones. Since 1 August 2025 the minimum length of an apprenticeship in England is eight months rather than twelve. The old rule that a fifth of your hours had to be off-the-job training has gone: each apprenticeship now publishes its own minimum number of training hours, with a floor of 187 hours across the shortest programmes, which works out at roughly six hours a week. And since February 2025 an apprentice aged 19 or over no longer has to pass English and maths to finish; if you are 16 to 18 and do not already have them, you still study them alongside the job.
The level tells you what the qualification is worth and, roughly, where you start. It does not tell you where you finish. Plenty of people who began on a Level 2 run businesses, and the Level 2 is still the most common way into the industry.
| Level | Called | Equivalent to | Examples in construction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundation | Foundation | A run up to Level 2 | Construction foundation apprenticeship, around 8 months, age 16 to 21 |
| 2 | Intermediate | GCSE | Bricklayer, groundworker, carpentry and joinery |
| 3 | Advanced | A level | Advanced carpentry, construction support technician, plant technician |
| 4 and 5 | Higher | HNC, HND, foundation degree | Construction site supervisor, civil engineering technician |
| 6 | Degree | Bachelor's degree | Chartered surveyor, civil engineer, construction site management |
Those are the English names. Scotland runs Foundation, Modern and Graduate Apprenticeships, Wales runs Foundation, Apprenticeship, Higher and Degree, and Northern Ireland runs ApprenticeshipsNI and Higher Level Apprenticeships. The jobs at the end are the same.
Which to aim at is simple. At 16 with GCSEs, Level 2 or 3. At 16 without them, the foundation apprenticeship or a Level 2 that does not ask for them. At 18 with A levels, a T Level or a Level 3 apprenticeship behind you, a Level 4 or a degree apprenticeship, and you should be aiming at the degree apprenticeship rather than settling, because the competition is for a reason.
The main apprenticeships as the English service names them, with the length employers typically advertise and the job each one leads to. Each is published with its own duration and every employer sets the actual length within it, so read these as typical rather than fixed.
Level 2 and 3, mostly from 16, and the route a great many site managers and business owners came through.
| Apprenticeship | Level | Typical length | Leads to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bricklayer | 2 | Around 2 years | Bricklayer, then gang leader, then site supervisor |
| Groundworker | 2 | 18 months to 2 years | Groundworker, plant, then civils supervisor |
| Carpentry and joinery | 2, then 3 | Around 2 years each | Site carpenter or bench joiner, then foreman |
| Plasterer, roofer, painter and decorator | 2 | Around 2 years | The finishing trades, and the firms that run them |
| Plumbing and domestic heating technician | 3 | Around 4 years | Plumber, heating engineer, building services |
| Installation and maintenance electrician | 3 | Around 4 years | Electrician, then M&E supervision |
Level 3 and 4, from 16 or 18. Where the commercial, planning and engineering careers begin, and the step before a degree apprenticeship.
| Apprenticeship | Level | Typical length | Leads to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction support technician | 3 | Around 2 years | Trainee quantity surveyor, estimator, planner or site engineer |
| Civil engineering technician | 3 | Around 3 years | Site engineer, then the civil engineering degree apprenticeship |
| Construction site supervisor | 4 | Around 2 years | Assistant site manager, then site manager |
| Construction quantity surveying technician | 4 | Around 2 years | Assistant quantity surveyor, then the Level 6 |
| Construction design and build technician | 4 | Around 2 years | Design coordinator, BIM, design management |
Level 6, from 18. A full honours degree, paid for by the employer, with the professional route built in.
| Apprenticeship | Level | Typical length | Leads to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction site management (degree) | 6 | 3 to 4 years | Site manager, project manager, CIOB chartership |
| Construction quantity surveyor (degree) | 6 | 4 to 5 years | Quantity surveyor, commercial manager, RICS APC |
| Chartered surveyor (degree) | 6 | Around 5 years | Quantity, building or project management surveying, MRICS |
| Civil engineer (degree) | 6 | Around 5 years | Site or design engineer, then ICE chartership |
| Civil engineering site management (degree) | 6 | Around 5 years | Section engineer, agent, project manager |
| Building services engineering (degree) | 6 | 4 to 5 years | M&E design or site management, CIBSE |
| Design and construction management (degree) | 6 | 4 to 5 years | Design manager, pre-construction |
| Project manager (degree) | 6 | Around 4 years | Project management across any discipline, APM |
Not listed: the plant, scaffolding, steelwork, highways and rail apprenticeships, the heritage trades, and the business and digital apprenticeships that contractors also run, from accounting to data. Search the service by the word construction and you will find around a hundred.
The law sets a floor. The industry, which is short of people and has been for twenty years, mostly pays well above it.
| Who | Legal minimum, from April 2026 | On a 40 hour week |
|---|---|---|
| Under 19, or any age in the first year | £8.00 an hour | About £16,600 a year |
| 18 to 20, after the first year | £10.85 an hour | About £22,600 a year |
| 21 and over, after the first year | £12.71 an hour | About £26,400 a year |
Know the first-year rule, because it is the single most common thing apprentices get underpaid on: the apprentice rate applies only while you are under 19 or in your first year, and the day either of those stops being true you are owed the full minimum for your age. The annual figures are our arithmetic on a 40 hour week, before any overtime.
Those are floors. A Level 3 apprentice at a national contractor is usually on a proper trainee salary from the start, and a degree apprentice at a tier one contractor or a large consultancy is on a graduate-style package with annual rises, a pension and in some cases a car allowance in sight. Set against a university leaver with tuition debt and no experience, an apprentice who finishes at 22 with an accredited degree, no debt and four years on site is a long way ahead on any honest arithmetic, and the industry knows it, which is why the degree apprenticeships are oversubscribed.
You can leave school at 16 in England as long as you stay in some form of education or training until 18, and an apprenticeship counts. The question is which one you can get onto.
Four or five at grade 4 or above, including English and maths, opens every Level 2 and most Level 3 apprenticeships. Employers set their own bar and the large ones tend to ask for the grade 4s; the smaller firms care far more about whether you turn up. If you have them, apply for Level 3 where it exists, because it is worth three A levels at the end and takes you straight to the Level 4.
Two routes. The foundation apprenticeship, introduced in England in August 2025 with construction among the first sectors to get one, is a paid job with training attached for 16 to 21 year olds, needs no formal grades, runs for around eight months, and is built to get you to the start line of a full Level 2. Ages 22 to 24 qualify too with an education, health and care plan or if you have been in care. Or go straight for a Level 2 trade apprenticeship that does not ask for grades, of which there are many, and study English and maths alongside it, which under 19 you must do anyway if you do not already have them. Neither route closes anything off later.
The searches say construction management, and the industry means three different jobs by it: running the site, running the money and running the project. There is an apprenticeship for each, at Level 4 and at Level 6.
Construction site supervisor at Level 4, around two years, then construction site management (degree) at Level 6, three to four years, which is a BSc in construction management with the CIOB route built in. The people who run the sites at the big contractors increasingly came this way.
Construction quantity surveying technician at Level 4, then construction quantity surveyor (degree) or chartered surveyor (degree) at Level 6, four to five years, both RICS accredited and leading to the APC and MRICS. The discipline that produces the most directors.
Project manager (degree) at Level 6, around four years, aligned to the APM, or design and construction management (degree) for the pre-construction and design side. Usually entered at 18 with A levels or a T Level, or from a Level 3 or 4 behind you.
The employer, not the university, is the door. You apply to Kier or Mace or Turner & Townsend or your regional contractor, and they place you with the university that delivers their programme. These are among the universities delivering the built environment degree apprenticeships, so they are names to raise with an employer rather than places to apply to directly.
One honest word. A degree apprenticeship is four or five years of working most of the week and studying the rest, with assignments due in the same month as a handover. It suits people who want the career more than they want the student years. Those who want the student years should take the degree, take the placement year, and arrive at the same place by a different road. Our guide to getting in sets the six routes side by side.
This is the part that catches people out. The big schemes recruit a year ahead, and the September you are aiming at is decided the previous winter.
The national contractors, the consultancies and the infrastructure clients open their early careers schemes for the following September. The best close early, some by Christmas. Apply as they open, not as they close.
Assessment days, interviews and offers for the big schemes. The regional contractors and the housebuilders advertise now for September. Colleges confirm which apprenticeships they will deliver and start taking names.
Results, then the scramble. The trades and the small firms recruit now, and all year. If the big intake has gone, take a Level 2 or a foundation apprenticeship locally, get your CSCS card, and apply to the big schemes again in the autumn from inside the industry, which is a far stronger place to apply from.
A trade apprenticeship is almost always local: a firm within twenty miles and a college within ten. A degree apprenticeship is wherever the employer's region is. Either way, these are the places to look, in order.
Every service named here is linked, with what each one is for, in the go-to guides on the getting in page. Each link was checked in August 2026.
Not a ranking and not an endorsement. It is a map of the market, so you can see the four kinds of company you could join and go looking properly. Every one of these runs a structured apprenticeship or early careers scheme, and there are hundreds more smaller firms near you that never advertise. If a link fails, search the company name and the words early careers.
They build it. The broadest training, the most site time, and where most careers in this industry begin.
Clients and operators who employ directly. Long programmes, structured schemes, and work that will still be running when you are 40.
They advise, design, cost and manage rather than build. More office time, earlier client exposure, and the fastest route to chartership.
Repeatable product, tight commercial discipline, and usually the shortest distance between a decision and seeing its consequences.
16 lessons across 4 modules on who gets paid and who answers to whom, a day in the life of every discipline, how to choose yours, and how to be the apprentice they keep. Exams at 8 out of 10 to pass, and a certificate with your name on it to put on the application. It costs nothing and you can start tonight.
Start the Early Careers PathwayYes. An apprentice is an employee with a contract, holiday and a payslip. The apprentice minimum wage is £8.00 an hour from April 2026 for under 19s and for anyone in the first year. After the first year you move to the normal minimum wage for your age, £10.85 at 18 to 20 and £12.71 at 21 and over. Most construction employers, and all of the large ones, pay above those floors.
Yes. The foundation apprenticeship, introduced in England in August 2025, is built for 16 to 21 year olds who are not yet ready for a full Level 2, needs no formal grades, is paid, and runs for around eight months. Many Level 2 trade apprenticeships also take people without a grade 4 in English and maths, and you study those alongside the job if you are under 19.
The legal minimum in England is eight months, since August 2025. In practice a Level 2 trade apprenticeship takes around two years, a Level 3 two to four, a Level 4 around two, and a Level 6 degree apprenticeship three to five years depending on the discipline. Civil engineering and surveying sit at the longer end.
It is the same accredited honours degree, with the fees paid, a salary throughout, and four or five years of experience by the time you graduate. The trade-off is less freedom: your employer chooses the university and you work most of the week. For site management, quantity surveying and project management it is the best value route in the industry.
In the autumn for the following September. The large contractors, consultancies and infrastructure clients open their schemes between September and January and the good ones close early. Smaller firms and the trades recruit all year, so if you have missed the big intake, go direct to local contractors and use the time to get your CSCS card.
In England, set up alerts for your postcode on Find an apprenticeship, the government service every funded vacancy must be listed on, and on Go Construct Careers, which is filtered to construction. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own services. Then ask your local further education college what it delivers, and write to the contractors working within twenty miles of you, because half of the apprenticeships in this industry are never advertised nationally.
Our mentors are working site managers, commercial directors and heads of department who volunteered, and several of them came in through an apprenticeship. Say in your answers that you are applying for one and which, and you will be matched with someone who can read your application before the employer does. Mentoring is for 16 and over, and if you are 16 or 17 a parent or guardian needs to know you have asked.
Find me a mentorAn email address, no password, no card. It opens the pathways, the certificates and the mentoring.