Employment and skills contexts, opportunities, challenges and starting points vary across England. Employment rates vary significantly between geographic areas and demographic groups, as do qualification levels, and opportunities for growth. All of this means there has been an increasing focus in debate on how to tailor employment and skills…

One in seven people of working age in England live in social housing. Partly because of how the limited supply of social housing is allocated, tenants are more diverse than the population as a whole and more likely to live in relative poverty. Strategies to tackle the big workforce, growth, cost of living and inequality challenges the country…

This research, commissioned by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, explores how a higher technical education offer with a focus on industry-specific skills, could help to address the needs of local people, local businesses and the local economy. Compared with its international competitors, the UK has a relatively low proportion of the workforce with…

This evaluation report presents the findings from the project-level evaluation of the CareerTech Challenge, delivered between May 2020 and June 2021. The report examines how the design and delivery of evaluations were undertaken, the findings across process and outcome evaluations and key learning from capacity building support delivered by…

Learning and skills contribute to economic growth both directly, by improving the skills base available to employers, and indirectly, by underpinning the five foundations of productivity identified by the government: ideas, people, infrastructure, business environment, and places. This is the case for all levels of learning from basic skills to…

Digital skills will have a crucial role to play in the United Kingdom's (UK's) economy beyond the pandemic, helping to drive growth, productivity and innovation across the rest of the economy whilst building on the UK's status as a world-leader in digital tech. Our research looks at the future of digital skills, based on new large scale surveys of…

"Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: The Impact of Adult Learning across the UK" identifies a range of economic and social policy challenges confronting the four nations today and argues that adult learning can make an important contribution to addressing these and promoting a fairer and more inclusive society. Published in 2017, the report draws…

The Skills for Jobs White Paper and funding and accountability consultation set out the Government's plans to introduce a greater focus on the outcomes of learning, including a new Skills Measure that looks at the employment and other outcomes that learners achieve. Will this give colleges and providers greater freedom to deliver for learners, or…

This report explores the links between trade unions and workplace training, and the potential benefits of social partnership in the skills system. The UK is relatively unusual in having no formal role for trade unions in the training system. In most advanced economies, trade unions and employers work alongside government in shaping the skills…

The Government has a target of three million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020, and is introducing an Apprenticeship Levy on the payroll of large employers to fund this increase and to encourage greater employer engagement with apprenticeships. Concerns have been raised about whether there should be a delay to get the details right;…