In February 2025, the Department for Education made a series of apprenticeship assessment reform announcements. Their outlined changes are aimed at:

enabling greater flexibility, allowing for more timely, proportionate and efficient assessment
ensuring apprentices are assessed on areas employers deem most essential to confirming occupational competency
getting skilled workers into the workplace, whilst removing any unnecessary barriers.

As part of its apprenticeship reform announcements in February 2025, the government introduced a set of assessment principles. These principles aim to streamline the assessment process by enabling more flexibility in design and delivery. The principles are:

Introduce shorter, high-level, less prescriptive assessment plans.
Assessment is more proportionate to the competency being tested.
Include the minimum number of assessments required to confirm occupational competency.
Remove duplication, including crossover of any criteria covered by included qualifications.
Where appropriate, assessments can be designed to take place on-programme.
Where appropriate, training providers will be able to deliver elements of the assessment, which will be quality assured by assessment organisations.
Make the best use of technology.
Enable employers to verify Behaviours.

Apprenticeship assessment is being reformed. This includes the removal of the need for all assessments to be done at the end of the apprenticeship journey, allowing for greater flexibility for apprentices to be assessed whilst on-programme. This will only apply where it makes sense to do so, enabling a more authentic demonstration of competence. It is expected that some assessment will still take place at the end of the apprenticeship journey.

Under the new apprenticeship assessment principles, training providers may deliver and assess specific components, where appropriate, and subject to oversight by the assessment organisation (AO). As part of their assessment strategy, AOs will determine, on a standard-by-standard basis, which assessment elements may be delivered by providers, and where they demonstrate the necessary expertise, resources, and capacity to do so.

Assessment plans are being streamlined and restructured to adopt a more high-level, less prescriptive format. Key changes include:

The reduction of assessment plan length to 2-3 pages.
A focus on broad assessment outcomes rather than mapping individual knowledge, skills, and behaviours (KSBs) to specific assessment methods.
The removal of detailed descriptions of mandatory assessment methods, offering assessment organisations greater flexibility in assessment design.

Yes. To better represent the approach to apprenticeship assessment, the following changes will be made:

‘End-point assessment’ will be replaced by ‘apprenticeship assessment’.
‘End-point assessment organisations’ will be known as ‘assessment organisations’.
‘Gateway’ will become ‘gateway to completion’.

Yes. However, while the reforms introduce greater flexibility, such as enabling providers to participate in assessment delivery and marking, the overarching responsibility for ensuring the validity, reliability, and regulatory compliance of assessments remains with the AO.

As such, AOs must be able to demonstrate to Ofqual that any provider contributing to assessment adheres to agreed quality standards, and formal approval and quality assurance processes will be necessary to safeguard the integrity of the assessment.

Responsibility for assessing behaviours is shifting from assessment organisations to employers, who will be required to verify that apprentices have consistently demonstrated the required behaviours throughout the programme. This verification must be completed before the apprenticeship can be formally concluded.

Yes, under the reformed apprenticeship model, assessments may vary between assessment organisations (AOs) delivering the same standard, but only within defined boundaries.

The new approach gives AOs greater flexibility to design assessment strategies that align with the streamlined, high-level assessment plans. These plans:

focus on assessment outcomes rather than prescribing specific methods
allow AOs to determine how best to assess competence, provided they meet the occupational standard
encourage innovation and responsiveness to sector needs.

As a result, two AOs may use different assessment methods, formats, or sequencing. For example, one might use a professional discussion while another opts for a written case study. As long as both approaches are valid and meet the required outcomes, they are permissible. Whilst the assessments may look different across AOs, they must be equally rigorous, valid, and aligned to the same occupational standard. The goal is to balance flexibility with fairness, allowing for innovation without compromising quality.

While assessment organisations (AOs) have more freedom to design assessment strategies, consistency will be safeguarded through several mechanisms, including but not limited to:

Ofqual regulation that ensures all strategies are valid, reliable, and comparable across AOs.
High-level assessment plans that define mandatory outcomes and structural expectations.
Assessment strategies submitted by AOs that demonstrate how assessments meet national standards.
Ongoing monitoring by Ofqual and sector engagement to help preserve fairness and employer trust.

So, while assessments may look different, they must remain equivalent in quality, rigour, and intent.

Where the content of a qualification is deemed to sufficiently cover the required assessment outcomes, aligned with the new assessment principles, and avoiding unnecessary duplication, it may be possible for the qualification to serve as the sole assessment component for the apprenticeship.

No. Behaviour competencies remain part of apprenticeship standards. However, they are no longer independently assessed by assessment organisations. Instead, employers are responsible for verifying that required Behaviours have been consistently demonstrated throughout the apprenticeship, before completion.

Not entirely. Under the new reforms, training providers may be permitted to deliver certain assessment components, but only where this is specified by the assessment organisation (AO) in the assessment strategy. Providers must also demonstrate they have the necessary expertise, resources, and capacity. All delivery remains subject to AO oversight and Ofqual regulation.

No. Under the new reforms, it will not be mandatory for training providers to deliver any part of the apprenticeship assessment. However, assessment organisations may permit providers to deliver certain components, where appropriate. This is based on the provider’s capability, and with oversight to ensure quality and compliance.

The review of apprenticeship standards will be carried out in a phased approach. While there is currently no published list of the priority order, revisions are expected to begin with high-volume and high-impact standards, including those aligned with foundation apprenticeships and critical sectors. Updates will be communicated by Skills England and the Department for Education as each revised assessment plan is released.

Yes. Where training providers are permitted to deliver elements of apprenticeship assessment, TQUK will apply a Centre Assessment Standards Scrutiny (CASS) model to ensure quality, consistency, and regulatory compliance. This includes robust external quality assurance and oversight of provider-marked assessments.

Skills England is currently piloting its revised principle-based approach to apprenticeship assessment with five test case standards, which are expected to be published in July/August. Following the pilot, they will establish a conversion schedule for all remaining assessment plans — a process expected to take approximately 15 months.

While revised plans will be approved and published in stages, the formal timeline for apprenticeship starts and delivery under the new approach has not yet been confirmed. TQUK is advocating for a minimum six-month transition period between publication and implementation to ensure that both assessment organisations and training providers have adequate time to prepare.

TQUK will share specific rollout timelines for each apprenticeship standard in its portfolio as soon as they are confirmed.

Frequently Asked Questions