The Skills Imperative 2035: Recommendations Report - Responding to changes in the labour market to support workers at the greatest risk
02 December 2024
‘Recommendations Report: Responding to changes in the future labour market to support workers at greatest risk’ is the first recommendations report to be published by the Skills Imperative 2035 programme, a five-year programme funded by the Nuffield Foundation. It draws on evidence in the five working papers published through the programme to date.
The labour market is changing. Twelve million people work in occupations that are projected to decline, putting them at higher risk of losing their jobs. This report provides recommendations for supporting more of these workers in to successfully transition into growing areas of the labour market.
These recommendations are based on perspectives and ideas shared by a panel of experts that attended a roundtable event run by NFER on 15th October 2024. Experts were asked to consider the collective response required to support workers at greatest risk, using findings to date from through The Skills Imperative 2035.
In particular, this reports considers the implications of research findings in Shifting sands: Anticipating changes in the future labour market and supporting the workers at greatest risk for policy makers, employers and education providers. It explores the barriers and solutions to supporting more workers in high-risk occupations to change careers.
Key Findings
Based on perspectives and ideas shared by a panel of experts, this report makes ten recommendations designed to help workers in high-risk roles successfully transition into occupations expected to grow by 2035.
The Government should:
- Prioritise the reinvigoration of adult education and skills, including by increasing real-terms public investment close to the levels of the early 2010s.
- Explicitly encourage employers to invest more in adult skills and recognise organisations that are already investing heavily in this area.
- Strengthen the Right to Request Time Off so that people can remain employed while retraining during an unpaid career break.
- Ensure housing and transport policy reflect current and future local skills needs and gaps and support workers to take up jobs in growth occupations.
- Simplify and raise awareness of the existing financial support available to workers to retrain and change careers, and for the employers willing to support them, so as to increase uptake by employers and employees.
- Increase access to adult-orientated careers and training guidance and advice.
- Provide additional funding to the FE sector to increase FE teacher pay, in order to attract and retain a high-quality FE teaching workforce by reducing pay disparities with industry and schools.
Employers should:
- Where possible, invest more in developing the skills of their own workforces, particularly the skills of workers in declining occupations.
- Where possible, invest more in management training and continue to strengthen their strategic workforce planning capabilities.
Education providers should:
- Create training courses and qualifications that are tailored to meet the needs of working adults and enable them, where necessary, to learn whilst working.