New Apprenticeships in Ireland: What's Been Added, and What's Coming for 2027

Every year I have at least one student who says some version of "I don't really want to go to college, but I don't know what else there is." For a long time my honest answer was a shortish list of trades. That answer is genuinely out of date now, and I don't think enough parents — or guidance counsellors, if I'm honest — have caught up with how much the apprenticeship system has actually grown.

The numbers, because they're bigger than people expect

As of the end of May 2026, Ireland has 87 national apprenticeship programmes across 17 sectors, and there are more in development right now. That's roughly 30 new programmes added in just the past two years, according to the Irish Times's recent reporting on apprenticeship growth. There are currently 30,536 apprentices employed by 10,191 companies, and the number of women enrolled has gone from 2% in 2018 to 2,841 today. The government has put €415 million into apprenticeship delivery for 2026 alone, and the current national plan is targeting 10,000 new apprentice registrations a year.

What's actually new

The apprenticeships I think are worth putting in front of students right now fall into two groups.

Newer additions, now well established: software development (two years, Level 6), digital marketing (two years, Level 6), accounting technician (two years, Level 6) and international financial services (two years, with Level 6 and Level 8 options). Accounting technician, retail supervisor and sales apprenticeships are, by the Irish Times's account, among the most popular of this group right now.

The genuinely recent wave: civil engineering (Level 8), quantity surveying (Level 8), social care (Level 8) and business and operations (Level 6) — plus a push into what's being called "green skills," with wind turbine maintenance technician (three years, Level 6) as the clearest example. Agriculture and horticulture apprenticeships have also been added and are expected to be in high demand.

That Level 8 detail matters more than it might look. A Level 8 apprenticeship is an honours degree — earned while employed and paid, not sitting in a lecture hall funding it yourself. That's a genuinely different proposition to the apprenticeships most parents grew up picturing.

And there's another wave coming

This isn't a closed list. SOLAS and the Higher Education Authority opened a call for proposals for new consortia-led apprenticeships on 6 October 2026, with a streamlined five-step development process replacing the old ten-step one. That call is open until 24 November 2026, with outcomes expected in the first quarter of 2027 — so if you're a 5th year right now, there's a reasonable chance the programme that ends up suiting a student best doesn't fully exist on paper yet. The national target behind all this is 12,500 new apprentices a year by 2030, two-thirds of it in construction and craft areas specifically.

Why I'd actually put this in front of a student now

The honest case for an apprenticeship hasn't changed — you're employed and paid from day one, you graduate with a recognised qualification and zero fees debt, and for the craft routes especially, demand for qualified tradespeople is about as high as it's been in years. What has changed is the range. A student who's good with people but has no interest in a lecture theatre now has genuine routes into finance, software, social care and renewable energy, not just the handful of trades that used to be the whole conversation.

The practical difficulty is the one that hasn't changed: with 87 programmes and more arriving, working out which one actually fits a particular student's interests and strengths is a much bigger task than it used to be. I use CourseCompass's Apprenticeship Compass with my own students for exactly this — it scores every SOLAS-registered apprenticeship against a 12-dimension trait profile built from a 20–25 minute assessment, and comes back with the student's top 20 matches, sector-grouped, with AI-generated explanations for their top 5 and direct links through to the official SOLAS programme pages. It's €14.99 on its own, or included in the 5th & 6th Year Bundle alongside Course Compass and PLC Compass for €49.99.

It won't tell a student which apprenticeship they'll get — that's still down to finding an employer willing to take them on, same as always. But it's a genuinely useful first step before they start cold-emailing firms with no idea what they're actually applying for.

I'm building out my own page properly at the moment — find me on Instagram @irishguidance.ie, or email me directly at shellyogorm@gmail.com. I answer everything myself.