Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what analysis Skills England is undertaking to determine the skills needs of nascent industries over the next five years.

Meeting the skills’ needs of the next decade is central to delivering the government's missions across all regions and nations. Skills England will provide an authoritative assessment of England’s national and regional skills’ needs now and in the future, combining the best available statistical data with insights generated from employers and other key stakeholders.

Skills England will also ensure that there is a comprehensive suite of apprenticeships, training and technical qualifications for individuals and employers to access, which are aligned with skills’ gaps and what employers need. As part of this, it will identify which training should be available via the new growth and skills levy.

Skills England will work together with regional and local governments, employers, education providers, trade unions, and regional organisations (for example Employer Representative Bodies) to ensure that regional and national skills’ needs are met at all levels from essential skills to those delivered via higher education, in line with the forthcoming industrial strategy.

The Industrial Strategy identifies eight growth-driving sectors: advanced manufacturing, clean energy industries, creative industries, defence, digital and technologies, financial services, life sciences, and professional and business services. When published in Spring 2025, it will include ambitious and targeted plans for each of these sectors, designed in partnership with business, devolved governments, regions, experts, and other stakeholders. Skills England is providing skills needs analyses that will feed into each of these plans.

Skills England has already published the first of its reports which considers key skills’ gaps and future skills’ needs, which is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66ffd4fce84ae1fd8592ee37/Skills_England_Report.pdf.

Many sources of data exist on labour market jobs and skills which facilitate national and local measures of demand. Skills England has produced one such measure, the occupations in demand index, to support its skills’ needs’ assessment. This index uses information from seven indicators across the labour market, including wage growth, online job adverts and visa applications to index demand for occupations.

Producing these assessments and ensuring they are understood, recognised by and accessible to all parts of the skills system will provide greater clarity on which occupations and sectors are facing existing and emerging skills’ gaps, where need for skills is set to grow in the future and what actions should be taken to meet these needs.