What changes when you hire your first apprentice

Taking on an apprentice is usually framed as a wages decision. It isn't, really. The wage is the smallest part of what changes. What changes is that you are now responsible for someone's safety, their training, and a chunk of your own week that used to be billable.

It is still one of the better decisions a growing trades business makes. It's just worth going in knowing what moves.

How to hire an apprentice, step by step

The government's small business site sets out the process for hiring an apprentice or trainee. In short:

1. Understand what you're taking on. An apprentice is an employee, with the same kind of pay and conditions as anyone else in the occupation.
2. Decide what you need. The trade, the qualification, full-time or part-time, and what the work will involve.
3. Find someone. Word of mouth, an ad, an employment agency, or an Apprentice Connect Australia Provider, who can also help with the paperwork. A group training organisation is another route: it employs the apprentice and places them with you.
4. Sign a training contract and agree a training plan with a registered training organisation (RTO) and the apprentice.
5. Register it. Your Apprentice Connect Australia Provider lodges the contract and plan with your state or territory training authority, which then oversees the apprenticeship.
6. Get through probation. It is generally 30 to 90 days and usually written into the training contract.

Start the conversation with a provider before you advertise. They can tell you which qualification fits the work you actually do, and what support is available now.

Your schedule changes before your revenue does

For the first stretch, an apprentice costs you time rather than saving it. You are explaining, checking and redoing. Two people on a job that took one person does not halve the hours.

Plan for that in your quoting. If you price the next six months assuming two productive tradespeople, you will underquote every job in it. Price for one and a bit, and let the ratio improve as it actually improves.

Supervision is a legal obligation, not a courtesy

Every state and territory sets rules about how apprentices must be supervised, and in the licensed trades those rules are specific — who counts as a supervisor, how many apprentices one person may supervise, and what work can be done under what level of oversight.

These differ by jurisdiction and by trade. Your state training authority and your trade's licensing body are the two places to confirm what applies to you, and it is worth doing before you advertise the role rather than after.

Apprentice supervision rules by state: one example

To show how specific these rules get, take electricians in Victoria. From 1 September 2025, Energy Safe Victoria's requirements for supervising apprentice electricians apply to anyone who employs one. The minimum level of supervision is based on the year of the apprenticeship. All electrical installation work by a first-year apprentice must be under direct supervision, and one supervisor can oversee up to five apprentices under what ESV calls broad supervision.

Other states set their own rules, and plumbing, gas and building trades have theirs. The shape is usually similar: closer supervision early, more independence as competence is shown, and a limit on how many apprentices one tradesperson can supervise. Check the numbers for your trade with your state's licensing regulator before you plan the roster around them, because the ratio decides how many jobs you can run at once.

The paperwork, in order

A training contract

An apprenticeship is a formal training contract registered with your state or territory's apprenticeship authority, not just an employment agreement. There is a registered training organisation involved, and a training plan that sets out what is learned on the job and what is learned off it.

An employment agreement under the right award

Apprentices are employees, covered by a modern award. Rates depend on the award, the year of the apprenticeship, the apprentice's age and whether they completed Year 12. They change. The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes the current figures and a pay calculator — use that, not a number someone remembers.

Insurance that actually covers them

Workers compensation is compulsory and your premium will change. Tell your public liability insurer as well — cover written for a sole operator may not extend to work performed by an employee. This is a five-minute phone call that prevents a very bad day.

Superannuation and payroll

Super applies. Single Touch Payroll reporting applies. If you have been running with no employees, this is the point at which you need payroll set up properly — your accountant will do it faster than you will.

Payday Super: paying an apprentice's super from 1 July 2026

If your first apprentice is also your first employee, you start under the new rules. From 1 July 2026, super is no longer paid quarterly. Under Payday Super, the ATO's deadline is that each contribution must be received by the employee's super fund within 7 business days after you pay them.

• New employees get a little longer the first time. The first contribution for a new employee must be received within 20 business days of their first payday. After that it is 7 business days, every payday.
• "Received" means at the fund. If you pay through a clearing house or payroll software, allow for its processing time. The ATO's advice is to pay super on payday.
• Late means the super guarantee charge, which costs more than the super would have.

For a small trade business, the real change is cash flow: super now goes out every payday instead of piling up for a quarter. Our guide to Payday Super in 2026 covers the rest, including what changed for businesses already paying quarterly.

Cash flow moves before the productivity does

Wages are weekly or fortnightly. Your invoices are not. An apprentice sharpens whatever cash flow problem you already had, because now a fixed outgoing sits between finishing a job and being paid for it.

Worth doing first, in this order: shorten your payment terms, start taking deposits, and get invoices out the day the job finishes. All three are covered in cutting the time it takes to get paid, and all three are easier to do before you have a wages bill than after.

What to have ready before day one

• ✓The training contract registered, and the RTO sorted
• ✓Award rate confirmed against the Fair Work calculator, in writing
• ✓Workers compensation updated; public liability confirmed to cover employees
• ✓Payroll and super set up, with STP reporting working and super paid each payday
• ✓PPE bought and fitted — not borrowed on the first morning
• ✓A site induction, even if it feels formal for a two-person business
• ✓Your supervision ratio checked against your state's rules
• ✓Quoting adjusted for the first six months of reduced output

Where the software helps

Two small things that matter more than they sound. Job checklists mean an apprentice can be sent through a task in the order it should be done, with the compliance steps built in, rather than remembering what you told them last week. And photo capture with a sign-off means the work is documented from the start, which protects them and you.