Upskilling the UK Workforce: United Kingdom

The UK workforce has larger and more chronic skills gaps than in most peer countries, with surveys reporting widespread recruitment difficulties, with implications for output, in high-skill sectors like digital and software, manufacturing, medicine and ...
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Volume/Issue: Volume 2024 Issue 030
Publication date: July 2024
ISBN: 9798400283741
$15.00
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Topics covered in this book

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Labor , Public Finance , Potential Growth , Supply of Labour , Skills , UK workforce , recruitment difficulty , demand skill , post-secondary education outcome , skills gap , Labor force , Education spending

Summary

The UK workforce has larger and more chronic skills gaps than in most peer countries, with surveys reporting widespread recruitment difficulties, with implications for output, in high-skill sectors like digital and software, manufacturing, medicine and life sciences, teaching, and construction. This partly reflects declines in primary and post-secondary education outcomes (particularly science scores, over the past two decades) and in workplace training and apprenticeships, particularly for the young. Moreover, the recent increase in non-EU migrants has not fully offset the adverse impact from Brexit on the availability of needed skills, including because smaller firms face more recruitment hurdles with regard to non-EU hires. Against this backdrop, there is an urgent need to upskill the UK workforce, both by building on ongoing efforts, as well as additional concrete measures to: (i) encourage students and young workers to join and excel in STEM; (ii) ensure adequate vocational and on the job training, particularly for the young; (iii) retain the talent produced by UKs world leading universities; (iv) upskill the existing labor force; and (v) facilitate attraction and retention of in-demand skills through adjustments to the visa regime.