Our priorities for apprentice and trainee regulation

We are always working to keep apprentices and trainees safe. Each year, we publish compliance and enforcement priorities that aim to minimise harm.

Based on data, we will focus on these areas in 2025–26:

Driving voluntary compliance

We will help employers meet their obligations by running awareness campaigns and working with other regulators. We will also make sure our information is easy for apprentices, trainees, and their employers to find and understand.

New employers

We will visit new employers to help them understand their obligations to apprentices and trainees. We will ensure they are meeting these obligations.

Employers with poor outcomes

Some employers have a high number of apprentices and trainees who don’t finish their training. We will investigate these cases to see if the problem is due to workplace conditions or low-quality training.

Memorandum of Understanding with WorkSafe Victoria

A new agreement with WorkSafe will ensure we share information about incidents involving apprentices and trainees. This will help us to act quickly to prevent harm.

Enduring priorities

We will always prioritise preventing the most serious types of harm. These are:

• injury or death
• poor quality workplace experiences
• exploitation and mistreatment
• insufficient learning and progress.

Learn more about our 2025–26 enforcement and compliance priorities.