Our latest insight into the UK skills landscape shows little change in the past six months. However, while the impact of economic volatility and social challenges continues, our 12th bulletin explores how improved government and employer leadership can potentially have a massive impact. While labour market conditions remain challenging, the right initiatives can lead to positive steps towards achieving national growth and net-zero targets.
Government and employer leadership required
Despite continued promises of higher skills investment, The Learning and Work Institute’s (LWI) latest research shows that government spending on skills in England will be £1 billion lower by 2025 than in 2010. This contributes to stalled productivity growth and stagnating living standards. LWI’s research also finds that employer investment is dipping, partly due to ill-conceived investment incentives. They recommend broadening the apprenticeship levy and introducing a new skills tax credit to boost investment in training.
Meanwhile, the independent group of work and employment experts, ReWAGE, recently published reports highlighting a lack of UK government leadership and urgent need to upskill/reskill UK workers and improve job design. They found that intermediate skills will be particularly vital for productivity growth. Their recommended action plan includes empowering individuals to reskill, improving career support and employer skills guidance, and reducing apprenticeship training costs.
In the face of green targets, businesses are stepping up
Exploring the green economy, The Green Edge highlights 38 local skills improvement plans (LSIPs) currently being developed by Chambers of Commerce across England. These set out the changes required to make technical skills training more responsive to local needs. Matching sector data with detailed occupational metrics will make it possible to define and devise appropriate green skills training, facilitating the move towards net zero.
On this matter, the UK government' plans to meet net-zero targets by 2050, partly by replacing 25 million boilers with low-carbon heat pumps. This presents a significant challenge, not least due to a mismatch between the government’s urgent rhetoric and its actions. As leaders in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning sector, Mitsubishi Electric UK is trailblazing specialised training programmes to future-proof installers’ abilities. Despite the cost of training, industry investment of this kind can meet the demand for green skills while helping businesses become more profitable and sustainable in the longer term. A lesson the for short-termists out there!
Creative skills and sectors still undervalued
Turning to the often-overlooked creative industries, The House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee recently published a report, ‘At risk: our creative future’ highlighting the central role of creative industries – including music, performing arts, publishing and film – to UK national prosperity. They contributed £115.9 billion in 2019. The committee warns that: ‘government complacency risks undermining the UK’s creative industries in the face of increased international competition and rapid technological change’ and has urged greater leadership in this area.
To balance this stark picture, the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences, The British Academy, published its SHAPE Skills at Work report, offering clear evidence on the strength of creative subjects and their contribution to the labour market. The report finds that social sciences, humanities and arts graduates are highly valued in numerous sectors, are recognised as employable by a wide range of businesses and contribute to innovation across the economy.
Building confidence in education
While skills shortages are an ongoing issue, The Edge Foundation’s latest research also highlights young people’s low confidence in many forms of education to cultivate these skills. Our research into 14-18-year-olds’ understanding of employability skills indicates that while young people know which skills are seen as important, they need help articulating how their education is developing these.
Fortunately, evidence for the strength of such skills may soon be drawn from an exciting government tool featured in this edition of the bulletin: The Department of Education’s new interactive educational outcomes dashboard. Using longitudinal educational outcomes (LEO) data, the tool tracks 3.6m individuals who completed GCSEs in England between 2002 and 2007 over 10-15 years. You can drill down by socioeconomic, demographic and educational factors, such as free school meals (FSM) eligibility, ethnic group and special educational needs (SEN). This is a prime example of what we can achieve using the (hitherto woefully underutilised) LEO data.
Looking to the future of work
Finally, the National Foundation for Educational Research has released its latest findings from its five-year strategic research partnership into the essential employment skills people will need by 2035. Skills Imperative 2035: Essential skills for tomorrow’s workforce highlights that despite substantial changes and job losses in the labour market, technological advancements and improvement of social service provision will also create new job opportunities. Higher-skilled jobs and healthcare roles are expected to offset millions of jobs displaced by automation and artificial intelligence. A mixed but ultimately hopeful outlook.
Download the full report
While economic upheaval and piecemeal leadership continue to hinder productivity in the UK, our latest action-focused bulletin highlights how the right initiatives and wisely targeted employer investment can lead us through these challenging times. Edge will continue to monitor and report on these developments in future bulletins. For now, download the full report here.
