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Top of Skills England’s wishlist will be training people in housebuilding and construction, green jobs, digital technologies and life sciences – all four sectors were identified as key areas in Skills England’s first report back in September.
Richard Pennycook, interim chair of Skills England, said the quango will “transform the skills landscape” in a bid to turn around a situation where businesses and public services have been “laggards” in productivity over the past three decades.
There is a “long list” of skills challenges facing the country, according to Phillipson, from a confusing system to a decline in businesses investing in their own staff.
Skills England’s task will be making apprenticeships sexy again and ensuring that university isn’t the only way.
Since Tony Blair set out the ambition for half of young adults to go into higher education in New Labour’s early days, there has been an increasing drive to higher education that saw 35.8% of 18-year-olds enrol at a university in 2023 – a total of 270,350.
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Meanwhile, 132,560 apprenticeships were started in England in 2024-25 – up 1.3% on the previous year; 25,365 in Scotland and 17,235 in Wales.
Skills England will play a lead role in creating a new growth and skills levy to replace the existing apprenticeship levy which taxes large employers to fund apprenticeships.
Employers with a salary bill over £3m currently pay the levy at a rate of 0.5% of their total annual pay expenditure, and that means just 2% of firms contribute.
It has not translated into a sea change for apprenticeships since its introduction in 2017.
Skills England is ideally placed to shift the balance here, Dani Payne – a senior researcher at Social Market Foundation (SMF) – told Big Issue.
The think tank has called for Skills England and the Department for Education to launch a national campaign to promote awareness and positive perceptions of young apprentices. “Apprenticeships are still really quite popular with young people, even though there is a kind of rhetoric around the media and government of them being seen as less prestigious than higher education routes,” said Payne.
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“I think it’s interesting that this myth is still quite pervasive in the policy discussion… the more that we say it’s less prestigious, it becomes true.”
SMF research from a few years ago found that while 18- to 24-year-olds are more likely to want to go to university, their parents are likely to be more in favour of a vocational education.
The latter route was seen as the best option for school leavers, with 48% of people saying they would prefer their child to get a vocational qualification over heading to uni or straight into work.
Meanwhile, almost as many people who were considered middle class wanted their child to take the vocational option (43%) rather than going to university (45%).
But the challenge of making apprenticeships more enticing isn’t just about learners and parents.
The think tank has also called for an intermediary service to be set up to encourage SMEs (small to medium enterprises) to be more inclined and able to take on apprentices.
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The proposed service would potentially be able to share resources – such as HR – to reduce the burden on small businesses and boost relationships that provide a steady stream of candidates.
Polling shows the majority of businesses have little to no interaction with local colleges (52%), schools (69%) or universities (90%).
“The government’s focus is quite clearly on young people and how can we get young people into apprenticeships?” said Payne.
“A lot of that’s constrained by employers and making sure that there is the employer there to support them. It’s also about if the employer is set up to be able to support the apprentice.”
Skills England currently exists in shadow form and is set to kick into action in its full capacity later this year. Time will tell if the quango has the skills to help people pay their bills.
Worlds apart
More than half – 54% – of the world’s workforce is in need of upskilling. By 2030, with technological advances and shifts in employment trends, the World economic Forum estimates that number will increase to 90%. Some countries are racing ahead to address the issue.
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Singapore has a SkillsFuture programme that since 2015 has given £300 to citizens over 25 “to deepen your existing skills or reskill into new areas outside of your current field”. Since May last year, they started giving a mid-career top-up to Singaporeans aged over 40.
Germany is a pioneer of dual vocational training, where the curriculum is partly designed with industry in mind. A similar initiative exists in Switzerland, where two-thirds of students choose a vocational route rather than higher education. The Swiss top a recent ranking of most skilled workforces. The UK lags behind at 45.
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