Oracle’s hairdressing apprentices have achieved a 100% success rate at End Point Assessment in 2025/26. Every apprentice who reached the final stage passed it.
That is worth pausing on, because End Point Assessment is not a formality.
What End Point Assessment actually is
An apprenticeship does not finish with coursework quietly ticked off over time. It finishes with End Point Assessment: an independent check, carried out by an assessment organisation with no involvement in the training, testing whether the apprentice can genuinely do the job to the standard the industry expects.
The independence is the point. Oracle does not mark it, and neither does the employer. Somebody from outside looks at the work and decides.
Which means a 100% pass rate is not Oracle’s assessment of its own apprentices. It is somebody else’s.
What sits behind the number
Apprentices carry more than most people realise. They are employed, working in a salon with real clients and real expectations, while also completing off-the-job training and building towards an assessment that decides whether the last couple of years counted.
Getting everybody through that comes down to unglamorous things done consistently. Knowing early which apprentices are drifting rather than finding out at the end. Employers who treat training as part of the job rather than something that competes with it. Tutors who have done the work themselves and can tell the difference between an apprentice who is nervous and one who is not ready.
The employer relationship matters more than anything else here. Oracle works with more than 150 local employers, and the salons that get the most out of an apprenticeship are the ones that treat the training as theirs too, not as something the college does elsewhere on a Tuesday.
What it means if you are considering an apprenticeship
If you are thinking about an apprenticeship in hairdressing, the honest version is this: you will work hard, you will be on your feet, and you will be assessed properly at the end by someone who does not know you. That is what makes the qualification worth having.
What a result like this says is that people who start are getting the support to finish. Nobody was quietly left to fail.
If you are an employer
Taking on an apprentice is cost efficient compared with recruiting somebody already qualified, and it means training to your own standards, systems and customer experience from the start. There is currently a new government incentive for employers taking on an apprentice starting in October 2026.
Oracle’s recruitment team advertises the vacancy, shortlists candidates and handles the training and assessment requirements alongside it.
To talk about an apprenticeship, as a learner or an employer, call 01302 813900 (Doncaster) or 01709 720746 (Rotherham), Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.