How Apprenticeships Can Solve Critical Skills Gaps in 2026 and Beyond
Why apprenticeships should be part of your workforce planning, succession and talent strategy
For many businesses, workforce planning has traditionally meant forecasting headcount, identifying vacancies and trying to recruit the people needed to fill them.
But the skills landscape has changed.
Employers are now facing a combination of skills shortages, changing technology, AI adoption, rising employment costs and increasing competition for talent. At the same time, businesses need to think further ahead: who will have the skills they need in two, three or five years?
That makes workforce planning about much more than recruitment.
It is about building capability before the gap becomes a problem.
And this is where apprenticeships can play a much more strategic role.
The latest Open University Business Barometer found that 57% of UK employers are experiencing skills shortages, up from 54% the previous year, while 42% of employers experiencing shortages expect the situation to worsen. The research, based on 1,500 UK business leaders surveyed in April and May 2026, also found that 51% of employers are seeing AI affect how they hire.
For employers, the message is clear:
If you wait until you have a skills gap, you may already be too late.
Apprenticeships provide a way to start building the skills your organisation will need before that happens.
What is workforce planning and why does it matter?
Workforce planning is the process of making sure your organisation has the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles, at the right time.
It involves looking at both your current workforce and your future requirements.
A good workforce plan should answer questions such as:
- What skills do we have today?
- What skills will we need in the future?
- Where are our current skills gaps?
- Which roles are becoming harder to recruit for?
- Where are we relying too heavily on individual employees?
- Who could progress into more senior roles?
- Where could internal development reduce the need for external recruitment?
- What impact will technology and AI have on our roles?
- Which skills could we develop internally?
This is particularly important because skills shortages don’t just affect recruitment.
They can affect productivity, employee workload, succession planning, customer service and business growth.
The Open University found that 40% of organisations experiencing skills shortages said one consequence was an increased workload for existing employees.
That creates a cycle.
Skills gap → increased workload → reduced capacity → increased pressure → greater retention risk.
Workforce planning aims to break that cycle before it becomes a serious business problem.
The problem with relying solely on recruitment
When a business identifies a skills gap, the traditional response is often to recruit.
That makes sense.
But what happens when everyone else is looking for the same skills?
- You can increase salaries.
- Use recruitment agencies.
- Advertise more widely.
- Expand your search.
- Wait longer.
Or compromise on the requirements of the role.
None of these is necessarily a sustainable long term strategy.
The alternative is to build more of the capability you need internally.
That’s where apprenticeships become particularly interesting.
An apprenticeship allows an employer to recruit someone with potential and then develop their skills around the organisation’s actual needs.
Instead of asking:
“Where can we find someone who already has these skills?”
you can start asking:
“Who has the potential to develop these skills?”
That is a fundamental shift in how businesses approach talent.
Apprenticeships are a workforce planning tool, not just a recruitment route
Apprenticeships are often associated with bringing young people into an organisation.
But they can be used much more broadly.
Government guidance confirms that apprenticeships can be used to hire new employees or upskill existing employees, helping businesses fill skills gaps and develop future managers and leaders. Apprenticeships are available from Level 2 through to Level 7.
That means an apprenticeship strategy can form part of several areas of workforce planning:
Recruitment
Bring new talent into the organisation and develop them around your needs.
Upskilling
Give existing employees the opportunity to develop new capabilities.
Reskilling
Support employees moving into new roles or areas of responsibility.
Succession planning
Develop people who could eventually move into more senior positions.
Internal mobility
Create pathways for employees to progress rather than leaving to find their next opportunity elsewhere.
Skills gap management
Develop specific capabilities where external recruitment is proving difficult.
This makes apprenticeships particularly valuable when they are connected to a wider people strategy rather than treated as an isolated HR initiative.
The skills shortage is also a succession planning problem
One of the biggest mistakes businesses can make is thinking about succession planning only when someone is about to leave.
Effective succession planning starts much earlier.
Consider a business where an experienced administrator, manager or specialist has been with the organisation for ten years.
- They hold significant knowledge.
- They understand the systems.
- They know the customers.
- They understand the processes.
- They know how the business works.
What happens if they leave?
The problem isn’t necessarily finding someone with the same job title.
It is replacing the knowledge, capability and experience that sits behind the role.
Apprenticeships can help create a pipeline of people developing alongside experienced employees.
Someone who starts in a junior role today could develop into a team leader or manager in the future.
That doesn’t mean every apprentice will follow a predetermined career path.
It means the business is creating options for the future.
And options are valuable when you’re planning for uncertainty.
From skills gap to skills pipeline
There is a significant difference between having a skills gap and having a skills pipeline.
A skills gap asks:
“What are we missing?”
A skills pipeline asks:
“Who are we developing to meet our future needs?”
This is where apprenticeships can become particularly powerful.
Rather than repeatedly returning to the external recruitment market, businesses can create a continuous pipeline of developing talent.
For example:
Apprentice → experienced employee → specialist → team leader → manager
Not everyone will follow the same route, and progression shouldn’t be forced.
But by investing in development early, businesses create the possibility of progression from within.
Government apprenticeship guidance reports that 80% of employers that have taken on apprentices have seen improved employee retention, while 86% say apprenticeships help develop skills relevant to their organisation.
That makes apprenticeships relevant not only to recruitment teams, but also to HR, L&D, operations and senior leadership.
Apprenticeships can help future proof your workforce
Workforce planning has become more complicated because the jobs businesses need tomorrow may not look exactly like the jobs they need today.
Technology is changing roles.
AI is changing processes.
Automation is changing administrative tasks.
Customer expectations are changing.
Digital skills are becoming increasingly important.
The Open University found that 51% of employers surveyed in 2026 said AI was affecting their hiring, while 19% were reducing entry level recruitment and 42% of those employers linked that reduction to greater use of AI.
That creates an interesting challenge.
If businesses reduce entry level opportunities because technology is changing the nature of work, they may also reduce the pipeline through which future talent develops.
This is particularly important for roles where technology is automating some tasks but creating a greater need for people who can communicate, interpret information, solve problems, manage relationships and use technology effectively.
The answer isn’t simply to employ fewer people.
It is to develop people differently.
Business Administration apprenticeships and transferable skills
This is particularly relevant to Business Administration apprenticeships.
Almost every organisation requires people who can organise information, communicate effectively, manage priorities, support customers, use digital systems and coordinate activity.
The sector may change.
The underlying capabilities remain valuable.
A Business Administrator could work across:
- Early Years
- Recruitment
- Legal
- Professional services
- Healthcare
- Engineering
- Finance
- Property
- Retail
- Manufacturing
- Education
- Hospitality
The environment changes, but the core business skills remain transferable.
This makes Business Administration apprenticeships particularly useful for organisations looking to build flexible, adaptable talent.
At Hatch, this is why our approach combines core business administration capability with sector specific pathways.
The objective isn’t simply to produce someone who can complete administrative tasks.
It is to develop someone who understands how those skills contribute to the organisation they work for.
Internal mobility: develop the people you already have
Workforce planning doesn’t always mean recruiting someone new.
Sometimes the talent you need is already in your organisation.
An employee may have the potential to take on greater responsibility but lack the formal qualification, confidence or structured development required to make that move.
An apprenticeship can provide a development pathway.
Government guidance specifically highlights apprenticeships as a way for employers to upskill and retrain existing employees, fill key skills gaps and improve retention.
This creates another important workforce planning question:
Before recruiting externally, who already has the potential to develop into this role?
Internal progression can bring significant advantages.
Existing employees already understand your culture, customers and processes.
They have organisational knowledge.
They have relationships.
And they can see a future within the business.
Developing that person can therefore be both a skills strategy and a retention strategy.
Measuring whether your apprenticeship strategy is working
If apprenticeships are going to form part of workforce planning, they should be measured like any other business investment.
HR and business leaders should consider tracking metrics such as:
Skills gap reduction
Which identified skills gaps are being addressed through apprenticeship development?
Retention
How long do apprentices remain with the organisation compared with other hires?
Internal progression
How many apprentices move into higher responsibility roles?
Productivity
What additional capacity or output does the apprentice create over time?
Time to competence
How long does it take an apprentice to become independently productive?
Recruitment costs
How much external recruitment has been avoided or reduced?
Employee engagement
Does structured development improve motivation and commitment?
Succession coverage
How many critical roles have an identified internal development pathway?
Manager capacity
How much time is being released from experienced employees as apprentices take ownership of tasks?
These metrics turn apprenticeship programmes from an HR activity into a measurable workforce investment.
The financial case supports the strategic case
Of course, cost still matters.
And apprenticeships can offer significant financial benefits.
Government guidance estimates that employers gain between £2,500 and £18,000 in additional output per apprentice each year during training, with apprentice output typically exceeding associated costs.
But the financial return is only part of the picture.
The bigger opportunity comes from combining:
Funding + productivity + retention + internal development + succession + future skills.
That is when the apprenticeship becomes strategically valuable.
Workforce planning should start before the vacancy exists
Perhaps the biggest change employers need to make is this:
Don’t wait for a vacancy to start thinking about talent.
If you know that:
- a manager may retire in three years
- a department is growing
- administrative workloads are increasing
- a particular skill is becoming difficult to recruit
- technology is changing how a role operates
- existing employees need development
- you have no obvious internal successor
then you already have a workforce planning opportunity.
The vacancy hasn’t happened yet.
But the skills requirement already exists.
An apprenticeship could be part of the solution.
What should employers do now?
A practical workforce planning exercise can start with five questions.
1. Where are we experiencing skills shortages today?
Look at recruitment data, vacancies, hard to fill roles and areas where managers are struggling to recruit.
2. Where could we have skills shortages tomorrow?
Consider growth plans, technology, AI, retirements, employee turnover and changing customer requirements.
3. Which skills could we develop internally?
Not every skill needs to be bought from the external market.
4. Who could progress within our existing team?
Identify employees with potential and consider whether structured development could prepare them for future roles.
5. Where could an apprentice create additional capacity?
Look beyond the vacancy itself.
Consider which tasks could be delegated, which employees could have time released and where additional capability could support growth.
These questions can form the foundation of a much more strategic apprenticeship plan.
The Hatch approach: build capability before you need it
At Hatch, we believe apprenticeships should be part of a business’s wider growth and workforce strategy.
Our Level 3 Business Administrator Apprenticeship is designed to develop the practical skills businesses need while building confidence, capability and character.
Through sector specific pathways, apprentices can apply their learning to the environment in which they work, helping employers develop people who understand not just the role, but the business around it.
Because workforce planning isn’t simply about predicting how many people you’ll need.
It’s about understanding what your organisation will need those people to be capable of doing.
And then starting to build that capability today.
The future of workforce planning is about building talent
The UK skills landscape is unlikely to become less complex.
AI will continue to change roles.
Skills requirements will evolve.
Experienced talent will remain competitive.
Businesses will continue to face pressure to improve productivity while controlling costs.
That makes developing talent internally increasingly important.
Apprenticeships provide employers with a structured way to recruit, develop, upskill and retain people while aligning learning with real business requirements.
The most strategic employers won’t simply ask:
“Where is our next employee coming from?”
They will ask:
“Where are our future skills coming from?”
That is the real opportunity.
Apprenticeships aren’t just a solution to today’s vacancies. They can be part of the solution to tomorrow’s skills gaps.
And for businesses thinking seriously about workforce planning in 2026 and beyond, that makes them much more than a recruitment programme.
They are a talent strategy.
Ready to turn skills gaps into a talent pipeline?
Hatch helps employers develop confident, capable and future ready people through Business Administrator Apprenticeships and sector specific pathways.
Whether you’re looking to recruit new talent, upskill an existing employee, strengthen succession planning or address a current skills gap, we can help you explore where an apprenticeship could fit into your workforce strategy.
Download the Hatch Employer Prospectus or speak to our team about your workforce planning needs.
