Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether Skills England has undertaken an assessment of current and projected workforce shortages in aviation engineering, including the implications of new apprentice registrations remaining below pre-pandemic levels.

Skills England published an updated assessment of current demand for occupations in 2025. This is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/occupations-in-demand/2025. The assessment, based on a range of indicators of employment demand, found that aerospace engineers were not experiencing elevated levels of demand in 2025.

Skills England also published its Annual Skills Report and Sector Skills Needs Assessment on 1 June 2026. This is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skills-england-annual-skills-report-and-sectoral-skills-needs-assessments-2026. The reports feature skills assessments of the Advanced Manufacturing sector and Defence sector, both of which include aerospace engineering as a priority occupation. In the recently published Skills Needs Assessments, Skills England estimate a growth of 6,000 workers for aerospace engineers across the Advanced Manufacturing and Defence sectors from 2025 to 2035.

Since 2018/19 starts have remained stable or grown in aviation-related apprenticeships. For example, starts in the aerospace engineer standard have increased from 140 in 2018/19 to 170 in 2024/25.