An advocate for the woman, working in partnership with her and giving the necessary support, care and advice during pregnancy.
Apprentices train to become fully qualified, NMC-registered midwives. The programme covers the full scope of midwifery practice: antenatal care including clinical examinations and screening, supporting women through labour and birth, postnatal care, and newborn assessment. Apprentices also learn to identify complications, make referrals, carry out emergency measures, and support families through difficult outcomes such as stillbirth or neonatal death. Public health responsibilities form part of the role too, including health education, safeguarding awareness, and supporting infant feeding.
Working across community and hospital settings, apprentices carry caseloads under supervision, attending antenatal appointments, running or supporting parent education sessions, and providing hands-on care during labour and the postnatal period. They document clinical observations, liaise with obstetricians, GPs, health visitors, and social workers, and communicate regularly with women and families from varied backgrounds. Shift patterns include evenings, nights, weekends, and on-call work. As training progresses, apprentices take increasing responsibility for autonomous decision-making within their supervised scope of practice.
Completing this apprenticeship and gaining NMC registration qualifies someone to work as a midwife. Most midwives are employed by NHS trusts, working in hospital maternity units, community teams, or midwife-led birth centres. Independent practice and private sector roles are also available. Progression typically leads to senior midwife, specialist roles such as bereavement midwife or infant feeding lead, team leader, or consultant midwife positions. Some midwives move into education, research, or management within maternity services.
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Completing this apprenticeship and registering with the NMC qualifies someone to practise as a Registered Midwife. Most newly qualified midwives take a Band 5 Registered Midwife post, typically on a rotational programme covering community midwifery, antenatal clinics, labour ward, and postnatal care. Some move directly into caseloading or continuity of carer models. A small number enter independent practice or roles with birth centres and private maternity providers, though NHS trusts employ the great majority.
After two to three years in a Band 5 post, midwives commonly move to Band 6 Senior Midwife roles with greater clinical responsibility or a specialist focus. Specialist Midwife tracks include infant feeding, safeguarding, bereavement, diabetes in pregnancy, and perinatal mental health. The leadership route leads to Band 7 Team Leader or Supervisor of Midwives, then on to Head of Midwifery or Director of Midwifery at Band 8 and above. Academic and research careers are also accessible, given the degree-level foundation.
NHS Foundation Trusts are by far the largest employer, spanning district general hospitals and large teaching hospitals across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Beyond the NHS, midwives work for private maternity hospitals and clinics, social enterprises delivering community-based maternity services, and as self-employed Independent Midwives. Public health roles in community hubs and GP-attached teams sit within both NHS and local authority commissioned services.
Learning takes place across a range of clinical placements and work-based settings throughout the programme, alongside academic study delivered by a higher education institution. Because this is an integrated degree, academic and practice assessment are woven together rather than separated into a single end-point event. Throughout, the apprentice builds evidence of competence against the 2019 NMC standards for pre-registration midwifery education, which must be met in full before the apprentice can register as a midwife. A readiness check confirms the apprentice has met all practice hours, academic requirements, and NMC proficiencies before completing. Assessment models for many standards are currently being updated; check the standard's gov.uk page for the current specification.
Because evidence of competence accumulates across the whole programme, keeping records consistently from the start matters far more than a last-minute push. Apprentices should maintain a practice assessment document throughout each placement, recording clinical skills, observations, and feedback as they go. Close, regular contact with the employer, the higher education institution, and a named practice supervisor is essential, particularly when planning which placements will generate evidence of specific NMC proficiencies. Waiting until the final stages to consolidate records creates unnecessary pressure in what is already a demanding programme.
Providers of this standard must offer genuine clinical placement breadth, covering community midwifery, hospital labour wards, antenatal clinics and postnatal settings. Check that placements align with the 2019 NMC standards and that practice supervisors and practice assessors hold current NMC registration. On the FATP profile, look for achievement rates above 65% and strong employer satisfaction scores from NHS trusts or similar organisations. Learner reviews should mention continuity of placement relationships and access to the full range of birth outcomes, not just routine antenatal care. Providers with a strong track record of NMC first-time registration rates are worth prioritising.
Be cautious where a provider cannot clearly describe how placements are allocated across community and acute settings, or where learner reviews consistently mention gaps in supervised hours. A high volume of apprentices combined with a falling achievement rate may point to insufficient placement capacity. Vague answers about how practice supervisors are trained and quality-assured under the 2019 NMC standards are a serious concern. For an integrated degree, also check whether the academic curriculum is genuinely woven through clinical experience or treated as a separate classroom block with minimal real-world connection.
Applicants typically need A-levels or equivalent Level 3 qualifications, though employers set their own entry requirements. Many employers also look for relevant healthcare experience, such as maternity support work. Apprentices must meet the NMC's requirements for entry to an approved midwifery programme, which includes satisfactory health and character checks. English and maths at Level 2 are usually required before the apprenticeship gateway. Check with individual training providers for their specific entry criteria.
Apprentices remain employed by their organisation for the full duration, working across a range of settings including community and hospital. Learning happens on the job and through time with the training provider. The current typical duration is 48 months. For the precise off-the-job training requirements, check the latest version of the occupational standard on the gov.uk apprenticeship service, as details are subject to revision under current Skills England reforms.
Before the end-point assessment, the apprentice must pass through a gateway, demonstrating they have met all the knowledge, skills and behaviour requirements of the standard and NMC proficiencies. Assessment models for many standards are being updated, so check the current specification on gov.uk for exact end-point assessment methods. Apprentices must also meet NMC registration requirements to practise as a midwife following completion.
The funding band for this standard is £26,000, which sets the maximum amount of apprenticeship funding that can be used. Levy-paying employers draw costs from their digital apprenticeship service account. Smaller employers who do not pay the levy contribute 5% of the training cost, with the government paying the remaining 95%. Employers taking on an apprentice aged 16 to 18 may pay nothing if they have fewer than 50 employees. Additional incentive payments may also apply in some circumstances.
Apprentices work across antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal settings under supervision, gradually building towards autonomous practice. Day-to-day work includes attending women at home and in clinical settings, monitoring mother and baby during labour, facilitating births, carrying out clinical examinations, providing infant feeding support and liaising with wider health and social care teams. Apprentices also respond to complications and emergencies, provide safeguarding referrals where needed and support families through difficult outcomes such as pregnancy loss.
On completion, apprentices are eligible to register with the NMC and practise as a qualified midwife. Most go on to employment within the NHS, independent sector or social enterprise settings. From there, career development can include specialist roles such as diabetes in pregnancy, perinatal mental health or fetal medicine, as well as leadership and management positions. Some midwives pursue postgraduate study at Level 7, including specialist practice programmes or advanced clinical practice qualifications.
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Curated by Alex Lockey, FATP founder and editor. Last reviewed: .
Sources include the apprenticeship's official specification on apprenticeships.gov.uk, Skills England guidance, IfATE archive records, DWP funding bands, and provider data sourced directly from the public Apprenticeship Provider and Assessment Register (APAR). Standard reference: 603.
Some sections on this page were drafted with AI assistance from published source data and reviewed by a human editor before publication. See our editorial methodology for how we maintain this content. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.