Nursing Careers UK

Apprenticeship standard · ST0827

Nursing Associate Apprenticeship degree apprenticeship

The nursing associate apprenticeship apprenticeship is a level 5 standard, reference ST0827. It typically takes 2 years. The funding band pays up to £15,000 towards the training, and your employer — not you — meets it. Finish it and you hold NMC registration as a Nursing Associate, on the Nursing Associates Part of the register.

Level 5
5 Level
2 years Typical duration Stated by the standard; employers vary this in practice
£15,000 Funding band maximum Towards training costs, paid by the employer — not a salary
Not published Apprentices started Starts are not broken down to this standard in the published figures

What this route actually is

You apply for a job, not for a course. A trust advertises an apprentice post, recruits you into it, and then enrols you on an approved degree with a university it has a contract with. From that day you are staff: on the payroll, in the rota, with annual leave, a pension and a line manager. Study is protected time carved out of your working week, and the rest of the week you are working — first in support roles, then, as your competence grows, in supervised practice towards the same standards a full-time student meets on placement.

This standard runs for about 2 years, with the academic content spread across your working week rather than taken full time. The £15,000 funding maximum is what the government funding band will pay the training provider. It never reaches your bank account, and it is not a measure of what you will earn. Levy-paying employers — which is every NHS trust of any size — draw the training cost from the levy account they already pay into; smaller employers pay a share and government covers the remainder. Your salary is a separate matter entirely, set by the band the post was advertised at.

At the end you are registrable on identical terms to a full-time graduate. This standard leads to NMC registration as a Nursing Associate, on the Nursing Associates Part of the register. There is no separate class of registration for people who came in this way, no note on the register, and no ceiling on where you can go afterwards. Employers who recruit newly qualified staff generally value the route, because an apprentice arrives already knowing how an NHS service runs.

Reference number
ST0827
Level
5
Status
Approved and open to starts
Typical duration
2 years
Maximum funding
£15,000
Leads to
NMC registration as a Nursing Associate, on the Nursing Associates Part of the register

Entry requirements

The standard does not publish entry requirements. In practice they are set by the employer and the university together, so the vacancy advert is the authority.

Two filters sit in front of you and they work in that order. The employer decides whether to shortlist you at all — and here relevant experience, usually as a support worker or assistant practitioner in the same service, counts for a great deal more than it would on a UCAS form. The university then confirms you meet its academic entry criteria for the degree. People who have been out of education for years, and who would find a straight application to a three-year degree daunting, often get in this way.

If you want the full-time entry requirements to compare against, the course pages for nursing associate list the typical offer each university asks for: see the course finder.

How you are assessed

End-point assessment (EPA) following the 24-month on-programme period; the apprenticeship leads to a Foundation Degree approved by the NMC, meeting the NMC's education requirements for registration as a nursing associate.

What that means day to day is that you are being judged on two tracks at once. The academic one is the degree — assignments, exams, a dissertation or major project depending on the programme. The practice one is competence in the workplace, signed off by practice educators against the regulator’s standards of proficiency. Falling behind on either is what ends an apprenticeship, and the most common cause is not the academic work but the collision between shift patterns, study days and life outside work.

Providers delivering this standard

What you give up to take it

You need an employer first

There is no clearing round and no central application. If no trust within travelling distance advertises an apprentice post this year, the route is shut to you this year — however strong your application would have been.

There are very few places

A trust typically takes a small handful of apprentices a year, often reserved for staff it already employs, against a full-time cohort many times larger.

You are tied to one geography

Your contract, your university place and your practice hours all sit with one employer. Moving away mid-programme usually means starting again somewhere else, and many posts carry an expectation that you stay on after you qualify.

It is hard, sustained work

2 years of full-time employment with a degree on top. There is no long summer vacation, and study time competes with the service’s rota.

The money, honestly compared

The apprenticeship’s financial case is that you earn while you train and take on no tuition debt. The university route’s case is that it is shorter, far more widely available, and carries its own support — student finance, and for nursing courses in England a non-repayable NHS grant on top of it.

Whichever way you come in, the destination is the same pay scale: a newly qualified nursing associate starts on band 4, worth £28,392 in England on the 2026/27 scale before any high cost area supplement. See nursing associate pay for the full ladder.

Where this standard takes you

Nursing Associate

Nursing associates carry out clinical tasks such as venepuncture, ECGs and recording clinical observations including blood pressure, temperature, respirations and pulse, while maintaining patients' privacy, dignity and safety and supporting them through difficult news. They bridge the gap between healthcare support workers and registered nurses, working alongside both across all four fields of nursing practice. Nursing associates hold a distinct part of the NMC register from registered nurses, and it is a criminal offence to falsely claim the title in England, though the title is not legally protected in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Registered nursing associates can progress to become registered nurses via a shortened apprenticeship route that recognises their prior learning and experience.

2 approved coursesStarts at band 4

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Other nursing standards

Where this page’s data comes from

Level, reference number, duration and funding band are taken from the published apprenticeship standard ST0827; course counts come from the regulator’s approved-programme register, and the salary figure from the Agenda for Change pay circular. Standards are revised and funding bands reviewed, so check the register before relying on a figure.