The UK faces a significant challenge in encouraging more businesses to invest in skills straining. Employer investment in training has declined significantly with a 9.3% drop in total UK training expenditure between 2011 and 2022. UK businesses also spend considerably less on training than EU counterparts (although more recent data on this is needed). This is despite a rich set of training options available through the DfE, such as apprenticeships, higher technical qualifications, and skills bootcamps.
So why do businesses in the UK not invest as much in skills training as our international counterparts? How can the skills system be improved to remove these barriers to investment? To address these questions, the Edge Foundation, in partnership with HM Treasury and the Department for Education, and with support from the Learning and Work Institute (L&W), convened a workshop with experts from the business and skills sectors. The aim of the workshop was to establish what the key barriers to investment in training are, especially for SMEs, and develop possible solutions to inform the longer-term planning across government departments.
Participants raised concerns that much of the data comparing the UK to other countries is from 2015; there is a possibility, therefore, that we may be overstating or underestimating the issue. Accurate, up-to-date data is critical to the case for encouraging more investment in skills training, and to ensure decision-making around skills policy is well-informed and reflective of business needs. In general, there needs to be far more engagement with businesses, specifically SMEs, from each Department exploring skills policy so the skills system is more responsive to their productivity needs. However, a key challenge here is representation of buy-in.
