Level 3 free courses for jobs offer: approval criteria

Criteria that qualifications in the level 3 free courses for jobs offer need to meet alongside the common funding approval criteria.

This was previously known as the Level 3 adult offer. Adults in England who are 19 and over and do not already have a level 3 qualification (equivalent to an advanced technical certificate or diploma, or A levels or higher) can undertake a qualification for free to improve job prospects and earn better wages. Adults in England are also eligible if they are earning under the National Living Wage annually or are unemployed, regardless of their prior qualification level.

Learn more about level 3 free courses for jobs.

We identified the sectors for this offer by:

This offer includes qualifications in the following sector subject areas:

  • accounting and finance
  • agriculture
  • building and construction
  • business management
  • child development and well-being
  • engineering
  • environmental conservation
  • health and social care
  • horticulture and forestry
  • hospitality and catering
  • ICT for users
  • ICT practitioners
  • manufacturing technologies
  • mathematics and statistics
  • medicine and dentistry
  • nursing and subjects and vocations allied to medicine
  • public services
  • science
  • teaching and lecturing
  • transportation operations and maintenance
  • warehousing and distribution

For us to include a qualification in this offer, it must:

  • be regulated by Ofqual
  • be already approved for funding in the funding year 2023 to 2024 through the ESFA funded adult education budget or advanced learner loans
  • be operationally available for all or part of the funding year 2022 to 2023
  • be at level 3
  • be at least 60 guided learning hours (GLH) in size
  • primarily support a student to enter a specific job role, or directly into employment (this includes qualifications that can be delivered in a workplace setting and support upskilling or specialisation)
  • be in one of the sector subject areas listed above
  • not be in scope to have funding approval removed as a result of the review of qualifications with no or low publicly funded enrolments
  • not mainly serve as an introduction to further training or study
  • not be an Access to Higher Education diploma, because this offer focusses on directly entering and progressing through employment, rather than progressing to higher education
  • not be a Technical Qualification in T Levels

Final decisions on adding qualification to the offer will factor in its overall affordability.

Read the list of qualifications approved for funding in the level 3 free courses for jobs.

Qualifications in this offer are still subject to the review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below in England.

Adding qualifications to the level 3 free courses for jobs

You must have funding approval for your level 3 qualifications in either loans or the level 3 statutory entitlement before you request them to be considered for the level 3 free courses for jobs.

You can ask us to consider adding technical and vocational qualifications to the level 3 free courses for jobs where they meet its criteria. We have done this to:

  • make sure that the offer stays up to date and relevant to the economy’s needs
  • review qualifications that either an awarding organisation or an authority with devolved adult education functions believes should be included in the list

This facility will be an additional exemption to the moratorium on approving qualifications for funding.

We will also consider adding a qualification outside of the sector subject areas listed above, where it meets all the other criteria and there is robust evidence of wage outcomes. We will also consider evidence such as:

  • robust evidence of shortages in valuable skills
  • being identified in a regional skills plan or other strategic skills-based strategies and plans
  • support from Skills Advisory Panels, Mayoral Combined Authorities or the Greater London Authority, or a Local Enterprise Partnership

We will only accept these requests from:

  • awarding organisations
  • mayoral combined authorities (MCAs) that have devolved adult education functions in England and the Mayor of London (Greater London Authority (GLA)

Where the primary aim of the qualification, as referenced in the qualification’s specification, is not to support a student to enter a specific job role or directly into employment but is on a sector subject area already included in the offer, we will consider robust evidence of employer need to support the application. For example, we would consider letters of recommendation from 3 or more employers, operating in the same sector as the qualification is in, indicating substantial demand, submitted via an awarding organisation, an MCA or the GLA.

We will only consider this for technical, occupational, and vocational qualifications in sector subject areas already included in the offer and qualifications already approved for funding. We will use these employer recommendations alongside an assessment of whether the qualification’s content and assessment arrangements are sufficiently occupationally focussed, and whether it can support a student to prepare for a job role or progress through a job role on the occupational areas the qualification is in. 

Awarding organisations (AOs) must complete an AO level 3 free courses for jobs notification form.

MCAs and GLA must complete an MCA and GLA level 3 free courses for jobs notification form.

Awarding organisations, MCAs and GLA should ensure that the qualification for which you are requesting free courses for jobs is already approved in either the Advanced Learner Loans offer or the level 3 statutory entitlement. You can check this by searching for the qualification on our website which lists the qualifications approved for funding. If a qualification is not already approved in one of these offers when you apply, it cannot be approved.

You should use one form for your organisation, which includes all the qualifications you notify to us.

We will consider these applications during our termly funding approval cycles. You must email the completed forms to qualifications.approval@education.gov.uk before 5pm on:

  • 21 October 2024 - for the Autumn: November 2024 funding approval cycle
  • 17 February 2025 - for the Spring: March 2025 funding approval cycle
  • 19 May 2025 -  for the Summer: June 2025 funding approval cycle

If we decide not to approve a qualification for this offer, we will tell you why.

When we add a qualification to this offer, we will not back date its funding approval start date. The funding approval start date will be the date we add it to the offer.