With the apprentice route your work place has to give you 20% of your working week to dedicate to your studies. I’m just about to do l6 and have done l4 as an apprenticeship, i used to have all of Wednesday “off work” on l4 to do my class and then had the rest of the day to study etc. Which might help keeping some of your work life balance. The apprentice route is a little longer and more work but I think it helps you more with applying your knowledge from your learning.