Skills England

Skills England to support schools on careers education

New skills quango chair says 'foundation of any skills development is satisfactory levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy'

New skills quango chair says 'foundation of any skills development is satisfactory levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy'

The government’s new skills quango will “support” schools to provide careers advice to pupils.

Skills England will “bring together businesses, providers, unions, mayoral combined authorities and government to ensure we have the highly trained workforce England needs”, Number 10 has said. It published its first report today.

Interim chair Richard Pennycook said it will “work with the schools system to emphasise that the foundation of any skills development is satisfactory levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy, and support our schools in the provision of high quality advice to students on career opportunities and pathways.”

He said the United Kingdom is the sixth largest world economy but “our businesses and public services have been laggards in productivity over the past 30 years. If we are to succeed in the years ahead, we need to transform the skills landscape.”

Skills England, set up in “shadow form” before its official launch next year, will form a “coherent national picture” of where skill gaps exist and how can they can be solved, working closely with the Industrial Strategy Council and the Migration Advisory Council.

It will help shape technical education to respond to skills needs, including identifying the training accessible via the new growth and skills levy and advise on “the highly trained workforce needed to deliver a clear, long-term plan for the future economy”, it added.

‘Long list of skills challenges’

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said “skills are vital to the change this government wants to deliver” but that the body’s first report identifies “a long list of skills challenges”.

She added “we have a fragmented and confusing skills landscape that lets down learners, frustrates businesses and holds back growth”.

To address this, the report said data, including on the “extent and causes of skills gaps and how far existing provision helps fill them – must flow between central government, regional bodies and local providers, with strong feedback loops and lines of accountability”.

In the UK, nearly one in 10 – or over 2.5 million roles – are in “critical demand” and 90 per cent of these require periods of work-related training or education, the report stated.

The health and social care industry has the highest volume of roles in demand.

But “high demand occupations include those in the education, manufacturing, and professional scientific and technical industries,” the report added.

The latest school workforce census, for the 2023-2024 academic year, showed 2,800 teacher vacancies and 3,400 temporarily filled classroom teacher posts in November 2023.

The UK has “key skills gaps” in essential employment skills, the quango’s report added, including in literacy, numeracy and digital skills.

“The OECD have also found the UK to have other significant skills gaps including cognitive skills (e.g. reasoning and problem solving) and social skills (e.g. judgment and decision making),” it added.

“For subject knowledge shortages, the most prevalent in the UK is in teaching and education and in STEM related subjects.”

Skills England will work with the DfE to ensure that all post-16 providers, including school sixth forms and colleges, are “incentivised to meaningfully engage in and help grow their local skills ecosystems”.

The body will conduct a series of roundtables and webinars in the autumn to “further test and refine the initial assessment of skills needs (including in key sectors), and provide opportunities to help shape decisions on how it will execute its functions.

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