NFER: Experts outline 10 steps to help workers in ‘high-risk’ roles transition to growing occupations and supply the country with the skills it needs

Based on perspectives and ideas shared by a panel of experts, NFER has made a set of recommendationsdesigned to help workers in high-risk roles successfully transition into occupations expected to grow by 2035.

The experts were convened as part of the NFER-led Skills Imperative 2035: Essential skills for tomorrow's workforce, a five-year research programme funded by the Nuffield Foundation. 

The recommendations are designed to help prevent workers in high-risk occupations, such as admin, secretarial and sales roles, from falling out of the labour market, while ensuring employers have appropriately skilled workforces for growing occupations, such as teaching and healthcare workers, come 2035.

The group, consisting of education providers, employers, government, and civil society, convened at a roundtable event on 15^th October. They were asked to consider the main barriers in England likely to hinder workers in ‘high-risk', declining occupations from making successful transitions into growth occupations, and how these challenges can best be overcome.  

Experts highlighted seven main barriers (Page11).

Based on their ideas and perspectives NFER recommends that:

Government should:

1. Prioritise the reinvigoration of adult education and skills, including by increasing real-terms public investment close to the levels of the early 2010s.
2. Explicitly encourage employers to invest more in adult skills and recognise organisations that are already investing heavily in this area.
3. Strengthen the Right to Request Time Off so that people can remain employed while retraining during an unpaid career break.
4. Ensure housing and transport policy reflect current and future local skills needs and gaps and support workers to take up jobs in growth occupations.
5. 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.
6. Increase access to adult-orientated careers and training guidance and advice.
7. 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.

It was also recommended that 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.

Previous analysis from the programme has highlighted that around 12 million people in England work in occupations that are projected to decline by 2035. By the end of the next decade, there could be over a million fewer jobs in these occupations.

Previous research has also highlighted significant Essential Employment Skills* deficiencies and found many of these deficiencies are in jobs that will grow by 2035. Our projections show that seven million workers won't have the essential employment skills they need to do their jobs in the next decade.

Jude Hillary, the programme's Principal Investigator and NFER's Head of UK Policy and Practice said:

“We are seeing unprecedented levels of skills shortages. Allowing skills gaps to widen could lead to the stifling of the country's productivity and act as a drag on economic growth, while at the same time limiting individuals' employment and earnings opportunities. 

“Helping more workers upskill or reskill to work in growth areas will help adults in high-risk occupations change careers, improve wages and boost the economy.”

Dr Emily Tanner, Education Programme Head at the Nuffield Foundation, said:

"This valuable report brings together the perspectives of sector leaders with robust evidence on the challenges posed by the changing labour market, and the evolving supply and demand for skills nationally and locally, providing a strong basis for ensuring that at-risk workers are supported into growing occupations.”

In later phases of the Skills Imperative 2035 programme, NFER will research the factors influencing young people's skills development throughout childhood. The aim is to increase their overall skill levels, so they are better equipped to succeed in growing occupations

ENDS℗ NOTES TO EDITORS

*Essential Employment Skills - Communication, collaboration, problem-solving, organising, planning and prioritising work, creative thinking and information literacy.  

The co-investigators on the Skills Imperative 2035 programme are from the following institutions: University of Warwick, University of Sheffield, University of Roehampton, Cambridge Econometrics, Learning & Work Institute and Verian (formerly Kantar Public).

Roundtable attendees included experts from across government, policy and research organisations, and membership organisations representing education providers and employers. These included; Yilan Huang (Head of Policy Analysis, Skills England, Department for Education); Alison Morris (Head of Policy, Skills Federation); David Hughes (Chief Executive, Association of Colleges); Ben Rowland (Chief Executive Officer, AELP); Tammy Fevrier (Deputy Director – Sector, Skills, Place and Progression, Department for Work and Pensions); Emily Jones (Deputy Director, Learning and Work Institute); Cathryn Moses-Stone (Head of Policy and Impact, Chartered Management Institute); Daniel Sandford-Smith (Director Education Programmes, Gatsby Foundation); Dr Peter Wilson (Research and Impact Manager, Policy Connect); Professor Tera Allas CBE (Director of Research and Economics, McKinsey); Robert West (Head of Education & Skills, CBI); and Emily Tanner (Programme Head, Post14 Education and Skills, Nuffield Foundation).