Stephen Jeffery

New Employer Non Levy £2,000 Incentive

Created

Hi All

After reading the new update Funding Rules can anyone share their thoughts on the £2,000 Employer Incentive.  How does the July Start work with the Oct eligibility.  Do they still go on the ILR as a July Start, or is it an Oct start with an Emp date of July?

Thanks

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Annabel Redshaw

Hi Stephen

As far as I understand it is a learning start date from 1 October 2026, but need to be employed from July onwards.

 

Anni

Ryan Wiseman

Hi Stephen,

This was covered in a DFE/DWP webinar today - they are looking at is an ILR Start Date of 1st October 2026 or later. 

Which annoyingly most providers will their largest co-hort in the August or September months which they will miss out on this payment, which we are currently thinking about intentionally delaying some of our mid-september starts until October so the non-levy employers can benefit from this.

As for how do they determine 3 months? It's not going to look at the Employment section in the ILR - this is going to link into HMRC and see if that National Insurance number has been paid by "x" company 90 days before the ILR start date if they have - for example an April 2026 payment for a 4th October 2026 Apprenticeship start they will not get this payment.

We do not need to flag anything to prompt this payment it should be automatically paid to us then we have 30 working days to get this paid to the employer.

This hiring incentive will continue to look at -90 days of the ILR student start date so if you have a new Apprentice starting on 10th January 2027 it will be looking to see if the student was employed by the company between 12th October 2026 and 10th January 2027 (not July 2026 for all future starts)