Skills England and the Department for Education are exploring ways to make apprenticeships more flexible, more responsive to employers, and more resilient to drop-out. One of the most significant shifts is the move toward modular, in-course assessment: breaking apprenticeships into smaller, staged units rather than concentrating everything on one assessment at the end.
The aim, it seems, is to boost achievement rates and reduce the ‘all-or-nothing’ pressure of traditional end-point assessment. For apprentices, modular progression means the chance to earn credit along the way and see their progress as they go. For employers, it provides earlier visibility of progress and skills gained. For policymakers, it’s a step towards easing skills shortages by ensuring that apprentices who leave early can still have recognised progress, rather than walking away empty-handed. It could even be a step towards ‘hop on, hop off’ apprenticeships that some in the sector are keen to see introduced, but in the here and now the focus is purely on improving flexibility and boosting completion rates.
For Awarding Organisations, modular assessment is more than a technical adjustment. It changes the rhythm of the whole process. Instead of focusing resources on a single, high-stakes end-point, assessments could now be spread across the apprenticeship, creating more touchpoints to manage, more data to track, and more moderation to oversee.
That raises both opportunities and risks. On the one hand, it offers AOs a chance to design assessment strategies that feel more supportive to learners and more useful to employers. On the other, it increases the need for tight quality assurance and could even warrant introducing new skills and capabilities into the organisation to adapt to the new approach. Independence, fairness and consistency can become harder to safeguard when evidence is gathered in smaller chunks across multiple stages and, in some cases, by different delivery partners.
As a result, careful process management is going to become even more essential. Without robust processes and tools, modular assessment could create more complexity for little return. For AOs, the challenge is to capture the benefits of modular thinking while holding on to the standards and streamlined processes that protect credibility.
For apprentices, the shift to modular assessment could make the journey less daunting. Instead of facing the pressure of a single, final test, they gain the reassurance and encouragement of smaller milestones along the way. Progress feels tangible, setbacks are less catastrophic, and skills are recognised sooner. That recognition matters for confidence and for keeping learners engaged through to completion.
Employers also stand to benefit. Modular structures give them earlier visibility of the skills their apprentices are developing, and a clearer picture of where support might be needed. In some sectors where shortages are acute, even partial progress can have value: apprentices who leave early but carry accredited modules could still enter the workforce with some recognised capability, or even potentially return to apprenticeships at a later date (although this hasn’t been confirmed – those ‘hop on, hop’ apprenticeships mentioned earlier are still purely conceptual).
For both learners and employers, modular thinking promises greater flexibility, but it only delivers if the system around it – and the organisations overseeing it – are able to facilitate the additional complexity without damaging outcomes.
End-point assessment was designed to create a clear line between training and judgement, and there is a risk that this new modular approach could blur that line. If more assessment happens during the course itself, AOs need to be confident that standards are still applied fairly and without bias. Without robust systems in place, the move to modular could risk eroding the very trust it aims to build. For AOs, this is an area that they will need to carefully manage, working with employers to ensure that fairness, accuracy and bias protections are maintained.
For Awarding Organisations, the priority now is making modular assessment work in practice, not just theory. That means rethinking assessment strategies so they can be broken into clear, manageable stages. It means strengthening moderation processes to keep outcomes consistent, even when assessments are spread out and delivered by different people. And it means giving teams the tools to handle a higher volume of evidence without adding layers of admin.
Technology is central to this. Systems need to support modular models while still providing the audit trails, reporting and oversight that protect credibility. At Skilltech, we’ve built epaPRO to adapt as assessment evolves, which will enable users to adapt their systems and processes easily.
Modular, in-course assessment is a big shift, but with the right preparation it can strengthen the apprenticeship system: more supportive for learners, more useful for employers, and more resilient for the future.
Are you looking for assessment software that can make the transition to modular assessments easier? Book a demo to see how epaPRO’s features can support your organisation.