As Europe navigates rapid change – from emerging technologies and demographic shifts, to evolving labour market demands, and the green and digital transitions - apprenticeships are proving to be a powerful lever for equipping people with relevant skills while fostering inclusion, innovation, and resilience.
While apprenticeships have traditionally been associated with manual trades, they are now increasingly expanding into high-growth areas such as cybersecurity, fintech, green technologies, healthcare, education, and insurance. This adaptability is central to their growing relevance in the EU’s efforts to close skills gaps, promote lifelong learning, and ensure fair transitions in a changing economy.
Apprenticeships offer hands-on, real-world experience that enables faster adaptation to evolving skill needs, said Cedefop Executive Director Jürgen Siebel. They provide an alternative pathway to traditional education, opening opportunities for a broader, more diverse range of learners—both young and adult—to build careers in high-opportunity sectors.
Apprenticeships evolve: from trades to tech, health, and green jobs
Evidence shared at the recent OECD-Cedefop symposium New Fields for Apprenticeship highlights how new programmes are emerging across the EU and beyond, addressing pressing labour shortages and future-proofing the workforce. For instance, in France, apprenticeships are helping address acute staffing needs in healthcare, with enrolments in health-related programmes increasing by over 500% between 2019 and 2023, according to OPCO Santé.
For employers, apprenticeships offer a strategic response to skill shortages. Analysis of online job ads across Europe shows that many of the competencies demanded in sectors like cybersecurity and educational technology (edtech) align well with apprenticeship training models.
Real-world learning for real-world impact
For learners, the benefits are equally compelling. In Ireland, graduates of an insurance degree apprenticeship reached the national average salary within four years. In the United States, apprenticeship graduates in ICT nearly tripled their pre-enrolment earnings, while those in healthcare nearly doubled them.
Moreover, the expansion of apprenticeships into new sectors supports inclusion and access. Programmes in areas such as computing in Scotland have successfully attracted school leavers, career changers, and upskillers—demonstrating how apprenticeships can offer flexible, sustainable learning paths that combine education with employment.
Scaling success: partnerships, policy, and quality matter
Across Europe, the development of new apprenticeship programmes is being driven by diverse actors—from business-led consortia in Ireland to state initiatives in Hungary and regional partnerships in Italy. Regardless of who initiates them, shared governance and structured collaboration between governments, employers, education providers, and social partners consistently emerge as critical success factors.
Yet, challenges remain. The rollout of a unified nursing apprenticeship programme in Germany, for example, revealed key issues related to trainer capacity and the quality assurance of workplace learning. Ensuring sufficient support structures and standards will be essential as more sectors adopt the apprenticeship model.
To guide this expansion, EU policy makers can draw on tools such as the European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeships and the ILO Recommendation on Quality Apprenticeships. These frameworks provide concrete benchmarks for designing inclusive, responsive, and high-quality programmes that benefit learners, employers, and society.
As El Iza Mohamedou, Head of the OECD Centre for Skills, stated: Evidence shows that apprenticeships can work across sectors and levels, offering strong pathways into quality employment. With continued monitoring, evaluation, and strategic communication, the value of apprenticeships—especially in non-traditional fields—can be better understood and more widely embraced across Europe.
The apprenticeships’ growing role in addressing skill shortages, supporting transitions, and widening access to opportunity makes them a cornerstone of Europe’s skills agenda.
