WHO WANTS TO BE A HAIRDRESSER NOWADAYS?

2017/18 – 11,500 apprenticeship starts

2019/20 – 7,000 apprenticeship starts

2024/25 – 3,400 apprenticeship starts (projected)*

Hairdressing apprentices are fast becoming an endangered species – their numbers have halved in the past five years. But could recent changes to apprenticeship content and funding help turn things around? Creative HEAD investigates…

What on earth has happened to apprenticeships? Once upon a time, hairdressing had a proud tradition of recruiting and training young people, with salons and barber shops providing apprenticeship opportunities for thousands of school leavers each year. But the way our industry works has changed and apprenticeship starts have plummeted – just 3,400 are predicted for 2024/2025.

So, what’s gone wrong? A hard-hitting 2022 report from the National Hair & Beauty Federation (NHBF), Careers At The Cutting Edge: Tackling the Skills Shortage in the Hair and Beauty Sector, identified a number of factors that have combined insidiously over time. These include funding issues that have led to many training providers going out of business; unfavourable perceptions around hairdressing as a career, which, coupled with government cuts to careers support funding have meant hairdressing apprenticeships have rarely – if ever – been promoted in schools; employers increasingly using self-employed staff within their business to cut costs, with apprenticeships part of the collateral damage.

And that’s not all, says the NHBF’s director of quality and standards, Carolyn Larissey. “It used to be the case that every qualification had to meet national occupational standards set by the Hair and Beauty Industry Authority (Habia),” she says. “But since government took that away, we’ve seen a black market in non-accredited courses that deliver minimal knowledge and skills. Not only are employers baffled by the different qualifications, there’s a complete lack of accountability among the providers that’s causing serious reputational damage to the sector.”

However, the past 12 months have seen the introduction of changes that it’s hoped might provide a boost for our sector, including new content and funding for apprenticeships in the hairdressing and barbering industries (but only in England), and a shake-up of the post-16 education and training system designed to remove low-quality qualifications lacking job prospects. Is there finally light at the end of the tunnel?

A Boost To Standards And Funding

In May this year it was announced that new Hairdressing Professional and Barbering Apprenticeship Standards at Level 2 had finally been approved by the Secretary of State, for delivery by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE), along with a substantial increase in the funding band.

The original Hair Professional Standard, introduced in 2016, had covered both hairdressing and barbering as optional pathways; the fact that this has now been split into two separate apprenticeship standards is “a big step forward”, says Carolyn Larissey. “We’ve been working on this for three years with IfATE and it’s been like trying to bash a square peg into a round hole, getting academics to understand a creative industry like ours where personalisation is such a critical element. I’m so pleased that the new content better reflects how modern hair salons and barber shops are run, covering issues such as employee rights and responsibilities, codes of conduct, social media, hair types and classification, as well as mental health and wellbeing.”

It has also been announced that the new Standards will receive more funding – the Hairdressing Professional at Level 2 has been given a revised funding band of 14, meaning training providers will receive £11,000 per apprentice – a rise of £4,000; the Barbering Professional at Level 2 has been revised to band 12, meaning a £2,000 boost to £9,000 per apprentice.

Says Larissey: “It’s a big leap forward for our sector to help address the skills shortages we are facing. After two years of battling on every single point to help government officials understand and value our creative industries, I am so pleased we’ve been able to secure a funding band that reflects the breadth and depth of training required.”

But not everyone is celebrating – yet. Award-winning training provider Andrew Collinge explains: “Back in 2016, when the Standards were initially introduced, we asked for £11,000 funding because the improved content and the new End Point Assessment (EPA) both involved extra work and cost. In the end, we were given £9,000, which was just about do-able, so off we went – and just six months into the first cohort, the then minister for education, Gavin Williamson, suddenly cut the funding back to £7,000. It was devastating – and impossible to deliver at that price. My business was able to cross-subsidise our costs with revenue from our salons, but many training providers simply stopped offering the Standards or went out of business altogether.

“The new Standards being introduced this summer do represent another improvement but there are various elements – a new theory test and a two-day EPA requiring more external verifiers – that increase the costs still further. While the £11,000 funding is great, it’s only what we were asking for right at the beginning – and I can’t help but worry that history might repeat itself and funding will get cut once again in the near future.“

POST-16 QUALIFICATIONS GET A SHAKE-UP

Meanwhile, government is pressing ahead with reforms to qualifications for those aged 16 and over, which it hopes will address the UK’s nationwide post-pandemic, post-Brexit skills gap. For too long, it says, university has been seen as the only worthwhile marker of success. Now government wants to give equal priority to college training and apprenticeships, strengthening links between employers and further education providers while simultaneously removing low-quality qualifications that lack job prospects.

The new system will create two clearly defined paths for students who’ve just completed their GCSEs (or similar): academic, meaning qualifications that primarily lead to further study; and technical, which primarily lead to skilled employment. Apprenticeships, A Levels and T Levels will become the main progression options.

In a further development, qualifications will now be classified as either ‘job ready’ or ‘preparation for work’, giving both students and employers a better understanding of what they’re getting into. ‘Job ready’ qualifications will be those delivered on the job, such as an apprenticeship, resulting in full job competence and the ability to work to commercial timings. The new Hairdressing, Barbering and Beauty Therapy T Level (once it is finally introduced) will be classified as ‘preparation for work’, as it will require further skill building to develop ‘job-ready’ competence.

Other qualifications will continue to be available, but in a bid to clean up poor-quality courses or duplication across the system, they will need to prove they give employers the skills they need or lead to good higher education courses, in order to receive funding. The government has already begun a clean-up operation of sub-standard courses and by August 2022 had removed funding from about 5,500 qualifications. The next task will be to remove funding from qualifications that overlap with T Levels for 16- to 19-year-olds – although as the T Level in Hairdressing, Barbering and Beauty Therapy has been delayed, de-funding of hair and beauty courses has also been delayed.

It's no secret that many in our industry are sceptical about the T Level for Hairdressing, Barbering and Beauty Therapy. “There’s this huge government push towards the T Levels,” says Andrew Collinge, “but I’m nervous about where they will leave our industry. It’s been designated as ‘preparation for work’ yet also as a Level 3 qualification – this means the student will not be ready for the salon floor when they qualify, but employers will not have access to any funding if they take them on. So who exactly does the T Level serve? Like many employers, I’ve had to turn away college-trained students because they’re simply not good enough, and it breaks my heart. The best we can hope for is that they form a bond with the salon who provides them with the work experience element of the course, and that salon then decides they’re worth the investment of time and money it’s going to take to get them on the floor.”

Schools To Be Held To Account

Since January this year, schools have been under a legal duty to provide pupils with more exposure to technical education opportunities, in a move to beef up the so-called ‘Baker clause’ introduced in 2018. Secondary schools must now provide pupils with “at least six encounters with a provider of approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships”. Two of these must be in the “first key phase” of school – to take place any time during year 8 or by 28 February in year 9. Another two encounters must then be in the “second key phase” – to take place any time during year 10 or by 28 February in year 11.

A further two must be offered in years 12 or 13. However, unlike the earlier encounters, students in years 12 and 13 will not have to attend by law. Schools that fail to adhere to the new rules face a legal direction from government.

The change follows criticism of the lack of enforcement of previous rules, with a 2019 study by the Institute for Public Policy Research finding that two-thirds of secondary schools were still flouting the Baker clause a year after it was introduced.

The legislation could potentially see hairdressing employers and training providers gaining precious access to a new pipeline of talent, but Caroline Larissey is not convinced.

“The expansion of the existing legal duty to cover careers advice in all schools is welcomed by the hair and beauty sector – in fact, it is common sense,” she says. “But we’ve had years without access and it will take time and resources for schools to ensure they have the capacity and expertise to make careers education a true priority. Hairdressing is a hard sell and so much damage has been done. It’s going to be really tough and I wonder if the training providers will have the stomach for it.”

“There’s no doubt apprenticeships are talked down in schools,” says Nahid Mortuza, head of individual services at IfATE. “Part of the problem may be that teachers have generally gone to university, so they have no experience of apprenticeships themselves. However, it’s been announced that teachers will soon be able to qualify via an apprenticeship, so we can only hope that this, too, implements positive change.”

Mortuza also revealed that the minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, Robert Halfon, is to write to all pupils who’ve taken their GCSEs this year, alerting them to the Career Starter website (tinyurl.com/t348rdf3), which gives a taste of how apprenticeships work and where they can lead. Different careers are profiled – such as chef, healthcare support worker and freight forwarding specialist. Sadly, hairdressing is not yet represented.