Does the UK have a Skills Gap?

Business groups are beginning to worry that there won't be enough young people in the UK with the skills necessary to fill the positions of those retiring.  Some are concerned that the highly skilled technical jobs will go unfilled and others fear that school leavers' literacy, numeracy and preparedness to work are inadequate.


Even in this very technically savvy generation of young people, there may not be enough with the relevant IT skills to fill the vacancies of the future.  A recent blog post on the Guardian's website suggested that by 2017 there will be 750,000 posts available for skilled IT workers but in 2011 there were only 56,025 computer science graduates in the UK.  The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) undertook a survey this year which revealed that a quarter of employers had struggled to fill technical positions in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.  In addition, the Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF) found that four out of five businesses in the manufacturing sector had had difficulties in employing people with the right skills.

However, it is not only companies employing technical staff that are worried about young people not having sufficient skills for the workplace.  The CBI discovered that 58% of the companies they surveyed were not confident that there would be enough skilled people to fill roles in the future.  More than half of the respondents were not satisfied with the resilience and self-management of the school leavers they had employed and some businesses admitted to not wanting to hire young people at all because they feared that their literacy and numeracy skills would not be up to the tasks.  An article on the BBC's website supported this idea by stating that, although 41% of working age people now have university degrees, those basic skills had declined.

Clearly, there is a skills gap in some industries and, at the very least, a perception of a skills gap in others so what are the government doing about it?  According to the Financial Times, they are “shaking up” the apprenticeship system to open up more places and give businesses more control.  In addition, they have introduced the new 'tech level' vocational qualifications for 16-year-olds, which will be taught from September this year.  Businesses are also getting involved in preparing young people for work as companies such as Marks and Spencer, Nestle and Barclays are introducing apprenticeships and work experience programmes as well as visiting schools to give talks.  The EEF fears that this will not be enough though and wants schools to do more to prepare young people for work.

As there is a skills gap in the UK, this begs the question: who is responsible for filling this gap?  Is it the government?  The schools?  How about businesses themselves?  It is very rare that you hear a story, nowadays, of someone who started off in a very junior position – making the tea was the old euphemism for it – and ended up with a successful career having worked their way up.  The expectation companies seem to have is that employees are going to turn up 'ready made' to do every job.  Is this expectation realistic?  In some sectors there will always need to be vocational qualifications before people can start working but it is interesting to wonder if businesses these days expect too much and offer too little?