A national study of 12,376 apprentices and trainees says the pay packet is not the main reason people walk. The supervisor is.

Small businesses are giving apprentices the best training and the closest supervision in the country. They are also the ones most likely to have an apprentice thinking about leaving.

That is the picture from the National First Year Experience Survey, published in August 2026 by Apprenticeship Support Australia. It draws on 12,376 completed responses from current and former apprentices and trainees across every state and territory, collected between 11 November and 8 December 2025. Independent analysis was handled by Fusion Research, with the wellbeing data interpreted by registered psychologist Danielle Buckley.

Construction has a direct stake in the findings. Building and construction was the single largest employing sector in the sample, accounting for 24 per cent of current apprentices and 20 per cent of former ones. Add electrical, gas, water and waste services at 13 per cent, and roughly one in three respondents was learning a trade on or around a site. Given how tightly the housing target is bound to labour supply across the construction industry, how those people experience their first twelve months is a workforce question as much as a training one.

The system works for most, and that is not the story

Start with what is going right, because the report is clear that most employers are doing a reasonable job.

Seventy six per cent of current apprentices rate the adequacy of their training as good or excellent. Seventy eight per cent rate their supervision the same way. Ninety per cent say they received adequate mentoring. Ninety seven per cent say their training prepared them to work safely. Around three in four intend to stay.

The story sits in the gap behind those numbers. One in five apprentices describe their training as only okay. Five per cent rate it poor or very poor. Seventy one per cent say they were clear about what was expected of them in their first year, which leaves 21 per cent who were only sometimes clear and 8 per cent who were not clear at all. Around one in six either did not feel supported in their first year or were not sure.

When attrition actually happens

Attrition is not spread evenly across an apprenticeship. ASA contract data covering January 2024 to December 2025 shows cancellations peaking around the second month, staying high through the first six, then tailing away steadily. By month twenty, the volume is a fraction of what it was at the start.

That shape matters more than any single statistic in the report. Whatever a builder does in the first few months carries far more weight than anything they do in year three.

The small business paradox

Two thirds of respondents work in businesses with 50 or fewer staff. Just over a third work in businesses with between two and ten people. That is the shape of most residential construction, and the survey has some uncomfortable news for it.

On almost every measure of daily experience, the smallest businesses come out in front. They also carry the highest retention risk.

APPRENTICE EXPERIENCE BY SIZE OF BUSINESS

Source: National First Year Experience Survey 2026, Figure 24. Based on current apprentices.

Two things appear to explain the split. The first is isolation. Forty seven per cent of apprentices in businesses of two to ten were the only apprentice in the workplace, against 24 per cent overall, and apprentices working alone were less likely to report having a workplace friend.

The second is psychological safety. Comfort in raising a concern climbed steadily with organisation size, from 91 per cent in the smallest businesses to 95 per cent in businesses of 501 to 1,000 people. Larger employers have formal channels. Small ones rely on the relationship, and if that relationship is the problem there is nowhere to take it.

The small builder gives an apprentice better teaching and closer attention, then leaves them with nobody to compare notes with.

Why apprentices actually leave

Ask most employers why apprentices quit and pay comes up first. The data does not support that.

Among former apprentices, the most common reason for withdrawing was having an unsupportive manager, supervisor or workplace, at 16 per cent. Family or personal lifestyle changes came next at 12 per cent, then mental health challenges at 10 per cent. Almost 40 per cent of those who left cited one of those three.

Lack of pay came fourth, at 9 per cent. Not being able to progress, learn and grow was 7 per cent. Quality of training at TAFE or another provider was 6 per cent. Unsafe or unhealthy working conditions was 4 per cent. Among current apprentices who had considered leaving, 12 per cent named an unsupportive manager, supervisor or workplace as a factor.

The report also modelled which experiences shift retention risk the most. Having experienced sadness, anxiety or worry raised the likelihood of retention risk by 65 per cent, by a distance the largest single factor. Work being different to what was expected raised it 28 per cent. Not liking the people they worked with or for raised it 24 per cent. Not feeling cared about at work raised it 18 per cent. Expectations around fair pay and recognition raised it 15 per cent.

The protective factors run in the same direction. Rating their own progress as excellent, enjoying the type of work, and learning from experienced people and mentors were among the strongest predictors of staying put.

That has implications for how the problem is being tackled at a policy level. Governments have leaned heavily on money as the lever, through milestone cash payments and apprentice incentives worth up to $10,000. The survey suggests money is necessary but a long way from sufficient. It does not fix a supervisor who has no interest in teaching.

Safety training is landing. Safety culture is not always following.

Ninety seven per cent of apprentices said their training prepared them to work safely, and that number holds up across every state and cohort in the report. Induction and formal safety training are working.

Where problems arise, the report attributes them to culture rather than capability. Apprentices consistently pointed to three things: time and productivity pressure leading to corners being cut, unsafe behaviour being normalised through poor leadership, and being expected to take on tasks too early without enough supervision.

That third one is worth sitting with, because it appears twice in the report. It shows up as a safety issue and again as a retention issue, where apprentices described being sent out on their own before they were ready and losing confidence as a result.

The training provider gap

Off the job training is where the survey finds the clearest system level failure. Some apprentices reported delays in securing a place at TAFE or another registered training organisation after starting their apprenticeship, in some cases spending up to a year without any formal training.

The cost lands on both sides. The apprentice feels they are not progressing, which the retention data says is one of the fastest routes to disengagement. The employer ends up releasing a more experienced apprentice for block training in later years, when the productivity cost of losing them from site is higher.

Results vary by state. Adequate training ratings ran at 80 per cent in Victoria, 79 in the ACT and 78 in New South Wales, against 69 per cent in Queensland, 71 in Western Australia and 70 in Tasmania. Reports of poor organisation or coordination between employer and training provider sat at 11 per cent in Queensland and 10 per cent in Western Australia, against a national figure of 4 per cent.

One caveat matters. The sample is heavily weighted toward New South Wales, which supplied 50.2 per cent of responses, followed by Western Australia at 19.3 per cent and Victoria at 18.6 per cent. Queensland contributed 514 responses, or 4.2 per cent. The Queensland figures are directional rather than definitive, and ASA has flagged further state and cohort analysis in later reports.

Cost of living is an older apprentice problem

Fifty five per cent of apprentices said cost of living was affecting them quite a lot or extremely. The load is not spread evenly by age.

Sixty six per cent of apprentices aged 25 and over reported high cost of living impact, against 45 per cent of those under 25. Thirty two per cent of the older group said they were extremely affected, against 13 per cent of those aged 18 or 19. Apprentices living independently were more than twice as likely to report extreme impact as those living with parents, 31 per cent against 13 per cent.

For builders taking on career changers rather than school leavers, that is the practical read. The financial pressure that ends an apprenticeship is far more likely to sit with the 28 year old paying rent than the 17 year old still at home.

The cohorts under the most pressure

Apprentices living with disability reported the hardest run of any group. Seventy per cent experienced sadness, anxiety or worry that significantly affected daily life, against 50 per cent overall. They reported lower mentoring at 82 per cent against 90, lower support in the first year at 73 per cent against 83, and were less likely to have a workplace friend at 81 per cent against 92. Thirty three per cent had considered leaving.

Women in trades reported a 58 per cent mental health impact and lower clarity of expectations in the first year, at 63 per cent against a 71 per cent average. First Nations apprentices reported a 55 per cent impact and the lowest overall wellbeing score of any cohort, 109 against an average of 115.

ASA also compared results with the 2018 Skillsroad Youth Census and found a slight overall decline in wellbeing since then, with the largest falls in vitality, from 7.6 to 6.9, and clear thinking, from 8.7 to 7.9. ASA notes the two samples cover different age ranges, so the comparison is indicative rather than exact.

Where construction actually sits

For all the industry’s reputation, construction does not come out of this badly.

Building and construction recorded a wellbeing score of 116.3 against an all sector average of 115.1, placing it fourth out of 20 industries. Electrical, gas, water and waste services topped the list at 117.9, with mining second at 117.6. The lowest scores were in accommodation and food services, retail trade and manufacturing.

On mental health, 45 per cent of building and construction apprentices reported sadness, anxiety or worry significantly affecting them, five points below the national figure and well below education and training at 58 per cent and administrative and support services at 55 per cent.

That is not a licence to relax. Nearly half of the apprentices on building sites still reported a significant mental health impact in the past year. But the assumption that construction is the worst place in the economy for a young person’s head does not survive contact with this data.

What a builder can control

The report’s nine recommendations are aimed largely at government, training providers and the incentive system. A handful of the findings translate directly into things an employer can change without waiting for policy, and they line up closely with what apprentices want from an employer. A positive and friendly workplace was the single most common expectation apprentices brought to their first job, named by 43.5 per cent, ahead of progression at 32 per cent and fair pay and recognition at 31 per cent.

Be explicit about expectations in week one

Clarity of expectations produced one of the widest gaps in the entire report. Among apprentices who had not experienced sadness, anxiety or worry, 82 per cent knew what was expected of them in the first year. Among those who had, the figure was 64 per cent. Adequacy of training showed the same 18 point gap.

Schedule the check in rather than hoping it happens

Buckley’s recommended structure in the report is five questions, designed to take a few minutes and be used regularly rather than saved for a problem:

• What is one thing you did well today?
• What is one thing you learned?
• What is one thing you wish you did differently, and why?
• What goal are you working towards this week?
• What could get in your way of reaching that goal?

Reproduced from the National First Year Experience Survey 2026, published by Apprenticeship Support Australia under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

Deal with isolation deliberately if you have one apprentice

Nearly half of apprentices in businesses of two to ten people are the only apprentice on the books. Connecting them with apprentices at other businesses, at TAFE, or through a support provider costs nothing and addresses one of the clearest structural weaknesses in small workplaces.

Do not send them out alone before they are ready

It appears in the safety data and again in the retention data. Apprentices are not asking for less responsibility. They are asking for supervised time on real tasks before the supervision disappears.

Know where to point someone

Mental health challenges accounted for one in ten apprentice withdrawals, and sadness, anxiety or worry was the largest single driver of retention risk in the modelling. Apprentices and employers can access mentoring and personal support services through an Apprentice Connect Australia provider at no cost, which for many small builders is the most practical option available.

THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE

The industry has spent three years arguing about apprentice incentives. This survey suggests the biggest lever was never in a budget paper. The top reason people walk out of an apprenticeship is the person they report to, and the biggest predictor of staying is feeling like they are getting somewhere.

That is uncomfortable, because it puts the responsibility back on employers. It is also good news, because clear expectations, a scheduled check in and supervised time on the tools are cheaper than a $10,000 payment and entirely within the control of a small builder. That is ordinary running a building business, not a training policy problem.

Frequently asked questions

Source: Apprenticeship Support Australia (2026). National First Year Experience Survey. Sydney, Australia. ISBN 978-0-646-74527-5. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. Report landing page: apprenticeshipsupport.com.au

This article contains general information only. It does not take into account the circumstances of any particular business. Builders should consider their own obligations and seek appropriate professional guidance where required.

If this article raises concerns for you or someone you work with, support is available. Apprentices and employers can access free mentoring and personal support through an Apprentice Connect Australia provider.

Author: TGB Editorial