Skills Imperative 2035: The implications of research on childhood skill development for addressing future skills needs in England
20 February 2025
“Building foundations: The implications of research on childhood skill development for addressing future skills needs in England” is the sixth working paper to be published by the Skills Imperative 2035 programme, a five-year programme funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
It is available alongside a Technical Report – ‘Building Foundations: Investigating childhood skill development, gaps and solutions’ – which examines the relationship between children’s cognitive and behavioural development between birth and age 17 and factors related to their school and home backgrounds.
These reports are motivated by the hypothesis that children’s cognitive and behavioural outcomes are antecedents for the ‘Essential Employment Skills’ (EES) they possess in early adulthood. This builds on previous research for The Skills Imperative 2035 which clearly identified a set of EES that will be especially vital in the future labour market.
In ‘Building foundations: The implications of research on childhood skill development for addressing future skills needs in England’ we explore the implications of this research for how future skills needs in the labour market might be met, particularly the growing demand for EES.
Key Findings
- Skills development is highly cumulative and, as children get older, inequalities in their cognitive and behavioural outcomes become more entrenched. This reinforces the case for intervening at an early age to support young people at risk of falling behind, whilst still appreciating that there remains considerable scope to influence young people’s outcomes at an older age.
- Children who exhibit behavioural difficulties are more likely to have lower cognitive outcomes later in childhood (and, to a lesser extent, the reverse is also true).
- Differences in children’s material, emotional and educational environments at home influence not just their starting points when they enter school but also their progress through every stage of primary and secondary education.
- Differences in school performance (based on the average progress pupils make in a school) can compound inequalities in children’s cognitive and behavioural outcomes that predate their start at school.
- Children’s extra-curricular engagement is positively associated with their behavioural and cognitive development between the ages of 8 and 17, but it is well documented that children from disadvantaged backgrounds have less access to these opportunities.
- Addressing future skills gaps is likely to require a systematic approach that addresses the structural and behavioural influences on children’s development from the early years, both at home and at school.