Regardless of age or experience an apprentice is usually paid around £150-£180 a week for your first year. That is under £8,000 a year which is less than half of the average wage and if you are living in London or a big city chances are that money will not get you very far. Also with certain apprenticeships you have to buy equipment, tools and other items which eat into your annual income leaving you with even less money.
There are however many different apprenticeships that actually paid really high before you qualify.
IT Apprenticeships £16,000+ a year
Tech, digital, IT or whatever you want to call it, these apprenticeships for big blue chip companies actually pay really well. I have seen some level 2 apprenticeships being advertised at around £20k+ a year.
Finance Apprenticeships £17-18,000 a year
As you can imagine some financial services can pay really high. Depending on what sort of apprenticeship you want to get into they can pay low or high. If you got for credit control or business administration finance you will probably be paid lower then the accountancy type apprenticeships which tend to py much higher
Legal Apprenticeships £18,000+ a year
In your first year you can look to be paid over £18k for your first year. The reason behind this is that there are many things an apprentice can do which will earn the company £1,000’s and will just need to be checked by a qualified solicitor. So the company make a lot of money for each apprentice.