RédactionAugust 18, 202611 min read
There's the question everyone asks in September — "have you found your apprenticeship?" — and then there's the far quieter one that tens of thousands of apprentices ask themselves at the end of their first year: "should I stay?". The contract is coming to an end, the school is offering a second year, the company hints that it would be "fairly open to it", and a decision has to be made. Often within a few weeks, and often with no method at all.
The default reflex is to stay. It's comfortable, reassuring, and it avoids diving back into a tight market where, since hiring subsidies were scaled back, every vacancy attracts dozens of applications. But staying by default is not a strategy: a poorly chosen second year costs twelve months of skill-building, at precisely the moment when your qualification and your employability are decided. Conversely, leaving without having secured what comes next can end with enrolment in a full-time course for lack of a contract. Here's how to decide with a cool head.
The second year of an apprenticeship is not a repeat of the first. Three things shift at the same time, and they weigh heavily in the trade-off.
The statutory apprenticeship pay scale is indexed to age and to the year of performance of the contract. Moving into the second year mechanically triggers an increase: from around 43% of the minimum wage to 51% for an apprentice aged 18–20, and from 53% to 61% for those aged 21–25 (as percentages of the minimum wage in force, revalued each time it rises). A crucial point, and one that is widely overlooked: this progression in contract year is retained in the case of a successive contract. If you sign a new apprenticeship contract with another employer to prepare a higher-level qualification, article D. 6222-30 of the French Labour Code provides that pay must be at least equal to that of the previous contract, and that the year already completed is taken into account. In other words: changing companies does not reset your salary to zero. Many apprentices stay put because they believe the opposite.
A supervisor who gives you exactly the same tasks in year 2 as in year 1 is telling you, without saying it, that your role is a purely operational one. Your qualification's competency framework, on the other hand, requires skills in steering, analysis and autonomy. This is the first warning signal to examine.
In the second year, the company is no longer just a workplace: it's your research field. If no serious research question is accessible there — no data, no cross-functional project, no contacts — you'll go into your defence with a major handicap.
Before opening a job board or saying yes to your manager, answer these five questions honestly. Each is worth one point; below 3, the question of leaving deserves to be taken seriously.
This diagnosis is far better written down in black and white than mulled over. Keeping a professional logbook in which you record each month's assignments, successes and frustrations turns a vague impression into factual evidence — useful for deciding, and reusable as-is in your activity report or dissertation.
Staying is not a lack of ambition. In several configurations, it's the most profitable decision.
You've already been identified as a future employee. In large groups, the second year is often the period when an apprentice moves into the HR talent pool. Leaving means starting from scratch on a bank of trust that took a year to build.
The sector is closed and places are scarce. Aerospace, energy, pharmaceuticals, corporate and investment banking: in these environments, an open door doesn't close without regret. Apprenticeship recruitment campaigns at major employers — Air France, EDF, SNCF, Airbus, L'Oréal — are decided well in advance, often as early as spring, and second-year places there go first to apprentices already in post.
Your dissertation is already under way. If you've identified a research question, obtained management's approval and gained access to the data, changing companies means throwing away six months of preparatory work.
You're negotiating a genuine step up. Staying doesn't mean staying identical. An extension is negotiable: a broader remit, a budget to manage, supervising an intern, sitting on a steering committee, pay above the statutory minimum.
Simple rule: never extend a contract without having obtained, in writing, the list of assignments for the second year. An amendment that renews a role without redefining its content is a renewal of the glass ceiling.
Conversely, some signals never improve with time.
If you decide to go back on the job market, treat it as a project, not a reaction. A job interview preparation guide reread two weeks before your first applications is often enough to recover the reflexes lost after a year in post — you're no longer used to selling yourself, you're used to working.
The main cause of failure isn't the wrong choice, it's the late choice. Here is a realistic reverse schedule for a second year starting in September.
| Period | Action |
|---|---|
| January – February | Self-diagnosis, monitoring sector vacancies, updating your CV |
| March | Explicit conversation with your supervisor: "are you considering a second year?" |
| April – May | External applications in parallel if the answer is vague or negative |
| May – June | Firm decision, negotiation of remit and pay |
| June – July | Signing the amendment or the new contract, sending it to the training centre and the OPCO |
| August | Final settlement if leaving, preparing your onboarding if arriving |
If you're reading these lines in August with no solution, there is still room for manoeuvre: an apprenticeship contract can legally be signed up to three months after the start of the training cycle, and deferred October intakes offer a second window. But the rule remains the same: the later the decision, the more your negotiating power erodes.
This is the point most apprentices discover too late. Three situations, three different procedures.
If your contract already covered the entire cycle (for example two years of a BTS or a Master's), there's nothing to do: the contract continues, and pay rises automatically on the first day of the second year of performance. Simply check on your payslip that the percentage has indeed been raised — this is often overlooked, particularly in very small businesses.
Here you need a new apprenticeship contract (or an extension amendment, depending on the case), registered with the OPCO via the Cerfa FA13 form. Watch out for the maintenance of pay: the new contract must pick up at least at the level already reached. Don't sign a contract starting again at "year 1" if you've already completed a year of apprenticeship.
Two configurations:
In all cases, inform your training centre. It is the centre that supports you in finding a new employer and that can, under article L. 6231-2 of the Labour Code, keep you in training for six months after a termination, while you find another contract.
Staying should never be free. Here's what is genuinely negotiable, in order of how easily it can be obtained.
1. The remit. This is the most accessible lever and the most useful for your CV. Ask for a project formally assigned to you, with a quantified objective and a deadline. Frame it as a service to the team, not as a demand.
2. Working conditions. Extra remote-working days, travel costs covered beyond the statutory minimum, access to internal training, attendance at a trade show. These cost the employer little and clearly improve day-to-day life. If you obtain remote-working days, investing in noise-cancelling headphones genuinely changes the quality of video calls from a shared flat.
3. Pay above the minimum. This is the hardest lever, but it isn't closed off: many collective agreements (metalworking, Syntec, banking) set minimums higher than the statutory scale. Check yours before starting the discussion — turning up with the text of the agreement is infinitely more effective than turning up with a feeling.
Leaving a company cleanly is a long-term investment. Your professional sector is smaller than it looks, and your former supervisor may well be called as a reference in two years' time.
The second year of an apprenticeship is not an administrative formality: it's the year that builds your case for being hired. The decision criterion is therefore neither comfort nor loyalty to a likeable team, but a single question: in twelve months' time, which of the two options will let me tell the better professional story?
If your current company offers you a larger-scale project, stay and negotiate. If it offers you the same year on a loop, the real risk isn't leaving — it's staying. And in both cases, decide in the spring, not in August.
To check your rights and the texts cited, refer to the official sources: the Labour Code on Légifrance, the Ministry of Labour's practical factsheets (travail-emploi.gouv.fr), the apprenticeship portal (alternance.emploi.gouv.fr) and the services of your industry OPCO.
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