Programme design
We sit down with your team, map your roles to the right standards, and shape a delivery plan that lines up with your operational calendar.
For Employers
One relationship.
Several areas of expertise.
From single hires to enterprise-wide programmes, TLC partners with employers across England to design apprenticeships that close skills gaps, lift retention and turn entry-level recruits into future managers. One delivery team, one point of contact, measurable results.
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People who stay
Apprentices stay longer and grow into the next role inside your business.
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Levy put to work
Funds drawn down against delivery, with transfers and co-funding handled for you.
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One point of contact
A named account manager from enrolment to end-point assessment.
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Built around your business
Programmes shaped to your values, frameworks and shift patterns.
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Evidence you can show
Monthly reporting on progress, off-the-job hours and assessment readiness.
Why partner with TLC
A learning partner for the organisation you are building.
Your people put your organisation’s ambitions into practice. They lead teams, make decisions and deliver the experiences on which your reputation depends. Investing in their development is an investment in the capability of the whole business. We connect learning with the roles, responsibilities and standards that matter to you.
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Start with the capability you need
The right development begins with an understanding of your workforce: strengthening an existing team, preparing people to lead or creating a route for new talent. We work with you to identify where the right programmes support those priorities.
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Connect learning with professional practice
Industry insight gives learning context. We connect teaching with the situations your employees encounter, helping them examine the reasons behind a task or decision. The result is stronger judgement and greater confidence.
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Support people as they develop
Clear expectations, useful feedback and a relationship with a learning coach give development structure. Your involvement matters too, particularly in creating opportunities to practise and apply new skills.
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Prepare people for greater responsibility
Developing talent creates options for the future of an organisation. The right programmes help employees strengthen existing capabilities and prepare for a different or more senior role, giving succession and progression plans a practical route.
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Access specialist insight through relevant programmes
Our network of academies and industry relationships brings specialist knowledge into workforce learning. We help you understand what a programme offers and how that expertise relates to the people you want to develop.
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Build a relationship that can evolve
Workforce priorities change as organisations grow. Our ambition is to be the partner that understands those changes and helps you identify the right learning opportunities over time. It begins with an honest conversation about your needs.
Tell us about your workforce, the standards you want to strengthen and the future you are planning. We will help you explore the right learning opportunities.
Discuss your workforce prioritiesThe standard runs both ways
What we ask of employers.
An apprenticeship is a partnership with obligations on both sides. We will be clear about ours. We need you to be clear about yours.
What we look for
- A reasonYou want people who stay and grow, not a cheaper way to fill a rota.
- A manager who backs the learnerSomeone who asks how the programme is going, and means it.
- Real work at the right levelThe apprenticeship has to be the job, not something beside it.
- A safe workplaceSafeguarding, supervision and a culture where people can speak up.
- Honesty at the startAbout the role, the hours and the person.
- Patience with the standardWe will not rush a learner through to hit a date.
What we expect of you
- Protected learning timeSix hours a week, averaged, planned around the rota and never dropped.
- A named workplace mentorFor every learner, from day one.
- Fifteen minutes at the reviewEvery twelve weeks, with the line manager in the room.
- Chances to practiseOpportunities to apply what is being learned, and to be observed doing it.
- Early informationChanges to roles, hours, sites or contacts, told to us before they bite.
- Your side of the funding adminThe apprenticeship service account, approvals and any co-investment, on time.
What you can hold us to
- A named account manager and a named coachFor every learner, and you know both of them.
- A twelve-weekly reportProgress, attendance and evidence you can put in front of your board.
- Funding, compliance and EPA handled end to endWith nothing hidden and nothing left to you that should sit with us.
- Early warning, with a planIf a learner is at risk you hear it early, not at month eleven.
- Experts in your workplaceThe academies and partners, alongside the coach.
- A route to escalateIf we get something wrong, you know who to call and what happens next.
What we offer
A complete training service.
We work alongside your HR, L&D and operations teams to design programmes that fit how your business works, and then we deliver them, manage them and report on them.
Accredited delivery
Coaches who've worked in the sector, teaching to the published Skills England standard with EPA delivered by approved end-point assessment organisations.
Off-the-job that fits
Off-the-job learning (a minimum of six hours a week) planned around your rotas. Blended live sessions, online learning and one-to-one coaching in the workplace.
Funding support
We help you understand your levy position, set up your DAS account, manage transfers and open up co-funding routes for SMEs.
Transparent reporting
Monthly dashboards on attendance, progression, off-the-job hours and EPA readiness for every cohort, shared with your line managers.
Recruitment support
Hiring new apprentices? We’ll advertise, shortlist and pre-screen candidates against the role you’re hiring for, at no extra cost.
Quality & compliance
Ofsted Good, City & Guilds, Pearson and CMI accredited. We carry the compliance burden so your team don't have to.
Aftercare & progression
When one cohort finishes, we’ll plan the next. Many of our apprentices roll straight onto the next level, building a clear progression ladder inside your business.
Sectors we cover
Five specialist sectors, one delivery partner.
Whether you're running a multi-site kitchen brigade, a residential care group or a national operations team, we deliver in the sector you work in, never from a generic template.
Health & Social Care
Levels 2 to 5Adult Care Worker through to Leader in Adult Care. A full progression pathway for residential, domiciliary and supported-living teams, with Learn Care Excel behind it.
ExploreCulinary
Levels 2 to 4Production Chef, Senior Production Chef and Senior Culinary Chef, delivered with the Academy of Culinary Excellence, inspired by Marco Pierre White.
ExploreEducation
Levels 3 to 5Teaching Assistant and Specialist Teaching Assistant, for schools, multi-academy trusts and specialist provision, with NUPAF Educators.
ExploreSafeguarding
Level 3Safeguarding Support Officer, for the colleagues holding multi-agency responsibility in health, care and education, with specialist learning from the NSPCC.
ExploreWellbeing
Level 3 · NewCommunity Health and Wellbeing Worker and Event Assistant, with hair and beauty programmes being built with the Academy of Beauty and Wellbeing.
Explore
How we work with you
From first call to End-Point Assessment.
You won’t get lost in a procurement maze. Most employers go from first conversation to first enrolment in a matter of weeks.
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Step one
Discovery call
A 30-minute conversation about your roles, your shift patterns and what good looks like for you. No commitment.
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Step two
Skills and gap audit
We map your team against the relevant occupational standards and identify the right level for each learner.
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Step three
Programme design
A delivery plan built around your business: timing, off-the-job hours, location and the line-manager check-ins we run.
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Step four
Funding and paperwork
We set up your apprenticeship service account, manage levy or co-funding, and complete every piece of enrolment compliance.
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Step five
Onboarding and delivery
Each apprentice meets their named coach, completes initial assessment and starts on a date that works for you.
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Step six
Progress and End-Point Assessment
Monthly reporting, three-way reviews every twelve weeks, and full preparation for assessment with an approved EPAO.
Their stories
What changed for the employers who chose us.
Three organisations, three problems, and what a year with TLC did about them.
An employer’s story · Health & Social Care
A care group with fourteen homes, people who stay
- The problem
- Turnover in the mid-thirties, agency staff on every rota, and a training budget spent on compliance courses that changed nothing.
- What we did
- Adult Care Worker and Lead Adult Care Worker apprenticeships across every home, a named coach on site, reviews planned around the rota, and the Learn Care Excel course books behind every learner. A twelve-weekly report to the operations director with progress and evidence.
- What changed
- The people who did the apprenticeship stayed. Agency hours fell as the home-grown team leaders came through. The training budget now buys people who are still there a year later.
“We had been paying for training that nobody remembered. Now we are growing our own managers.”
An employer’s story · Culinary
A hospitality group that could not recruit chefs, grow your own
- The problem
- Twelve months of unfilled chef vacancies, kitchens running on agency cover, and a general manager tired of paying finder’s fees for people who left within six months.
- What we did
- A Production Chef cohort built from their own kitchen porters and front-of-house staff, taught to the Academy’s standard, with masterclasses and the Learning Collection alongside a coach who had run a brigade.
- What changed
- A pipeline of chefs who already knew the business, and a head chef who now interviews for attitude because he knows the skill can be taught.
“We stopped looking for chefs and started making them.”
An employer’s story · Education
A multi-academy trust, specialists from within
- The problem
- Rising SEND need across eleven schools, specialist posts that could not be filled, and experienced teaching assistants leaving because there was nowhere to go.
- What we did
- The Specialist Teaching Assistant apprenticeship at Level 5 for the trust’s strongest teaching assistants, with the SEND and social and emotional wellbeing specialisms, delivered around the school day.
- What changed
- A specialist in every school who was already trusted there, retention of the people the trust could least afford to lose, and a progression route the next cohort can see.
“We had the right people all along. They just needed the training and a reason to stay.”
Names and details are illustrative while we gather our learners’ and employers’ own stories, in their own words.
Funding
Make the Growth and Skills Levy work for your business.
If your annual pay bill is over £3 million, you're already paying the If your annual pay bill is over £3 million, you’re already paying the levy. The question is whether you’re spending it. If you’re under that threshold, the government funds 100% of training for apprentices aged 16–24 and 95% for those aged 25 and over.
We'll walk you through your funding position, help you set up your apprenticeship service account, and if you’re a levy payer with surplus, show you how to transfer up to 50% of unused funds to partner SMEs in your supply chain.
Funding explained
Impact
The numbers our employers care about.
- Higher retention: apprentices stay an average of 3+ years post-completion.
- Stronger internal pipeline: promoting from within instead of recruiting in.
- Levy spent, not wasted: funds drawn down against delivery, not lost to expiry.
- Compliance handled: off-the-job, EPA readiness and Ofsted-aligned record keeping.
- Measurable productivity: standardised processes, fewer errors, better customer outcomes.
The honest bit
It takes some time. Here is exactly how much.
The one thing an apprenticeship asks of an employer is time. We plan it, we protect it, and we put it in your diary before it costs you anything.
- Protected learning time, in paid hours, planned around the rota, never on top of it.
- Nobody loses a colleague for a day, without it being in the rota weeks ahead.
- At least six hours a week, averaged across the whole programme, and reduced for prior experience. Not a day a week.
- Most of it in the workplace, coaching at the bench, the bedside or the desk, shadowing, and work they already do.
- One coach visit a month, scheduled with you, never dropped on you.
- Expert sessions planned a term ahead, so shifts can be covered.
- You get the calendar, every date, every learner, in one place, in TLC Base.
Straight answers
The six things you are already thinking.
- “I’ll lose someone a day a week.”
- No. The hours are averaged across the whole programme, and most of them are spent in your workplace.
- “It’ll come out of my budget.”
- For most employers the training cost is met by the levy or by government. What you commit is time.
- “My people already know the job.”
- It isn’t a basic skills course. It is the standard of the best in the field, plus technique nobody has taught them.
- “My best person is fifty-four.”
- There is no upper age limit. Levels 3, 4 and 5 exist for people who already lead.
- “They’ll be intimidated by the names.”
- Some will be, at first. Then they meet the work and find it is about their setting, their people and their standards. The standard is demanding. It is never humiliating.
- “They’ll leave once they’re qualified.”
- People leave when there is nowhere to go next. Now there is, with you.
Trusted by
And, over twenty-three years
The decision
Is TLC the right partner?
Honest answers save both of us time.
Choose TLC if
- You want people who stayWe build programmes that make people better at the job they have and give them a reason to build a career with you.
- You want a partner, not a supplierA named account manager, a coach your managers know, and a twelve-weekly report you can put in front of your board.
- You want your people taught by the best in your sectorThe Academy, the NSPCC, Learn Care Excel and NUPAF Educators, alongside the coach, in your workplace.
- You are willing to protect the learning timeSix hours a week, averaged, planned around your rota. We will never drop it on a manager unannounced.
Look elsewhere if
- You want the cheapest optionWe are not it, and we will not pretend to be.
- You want a provider who never asks anything of your managersFifteen minutes at the twelve-weekly review is the price of an apprenticeship that works.
- You want the levy spent with the least involvementThat is how training gets forgotten. We would rather you spent it somewhere it will be remembered.
FAQs
Employer questions, answered.
How long does an apprenticeship take?
Most TLC apprenticeships run for 12–18 months of on-programme learning, plus a 2–3 month End-Point Assessment window. Level 4 and 5 programmes can extend longer, depending on the standard. We'll confirm an exact timeline during your programme design call.
What is "off-the-job" learning, and how does it fit our shifts?
Apprentices must spend a minimum of six hours a week (averaged across the programme) on off-the-job learning, the part that builds knowledge beyond their day job. We deliver this through a blend of live sessions, e-learning and on-site coaching, planned around your rotas. No two employer plans look the same.
Do we have to pay the levy to use TLC?
No. If your annual pay bill is under £3 million, the government fully funds apprentices aged 16–24 and pays 95% for those aged 25 and over. Levy-paying employers draw down funds from their apprenticeship service account. We support employers in both situations, and help levy payers transfer up to 50% of their unused funds to SMEs they want to support.
Can we put existing staff onto an apprenticeship?
Yes, provided the apprenticeship offers substantial new learning relevant to their role. Many of our employer partners use apprenticeships to upskill long-serving staff into new responsibilities, particularly in senior care and kitchen roles.
Can you help us recruit new apprentices?
Yes. We advertise vacancies through the government's Find an Apprenticeship service, our own learner channels and local partner networks, then shortlist against the role you're hiring for. There's no additional fee for this service.
How is progress reported back to us?
You get a monthly progress dashboard covering attendance, off-the-job hours, milestones met and EPA readiness, plus quarterly tripartite reviews between the apprentice, their line manager and their TLC coach.
Are TLC programmes Ofsted-rated?
Yes. TLC is an Ofsted-rated Good Provider, with delivery against City & Guilds, Pearson and CMI standards. Our end-point assessments are delivered by approved EPAOs.
Let’s talk
Ready to build the team you’ll need next year?
A thirty-minute call about your roles, your funding position and the right level of apprenticeship for the people you want to develop. Most employers go from first conversation to first enrolment in weeks.