Latest news from FE Week

If belonging is real, your data won’t look pretty

Belonging in FE has had a curious re‑emergence over the past two to three years. It is not new; anyone who has worked in FE long enough knows that the sector has always carried an unsung moral commitment to widening participation and second chances.

But recently, belonging and mattering have moved from the margins of practice into the centre. Attachment‑aware and trauma‑informed approaches have given us new language, better evidence and crucially, permission to say out loud that learning does not happen in isolation from relationships.

Students do not just attend college; they arrive carrying stories, ruptures, hopes and histories. When we attend to those things, psychological safety is established and belonging emerges allowing students to build and develop an optimal brain state for learning.

The danger, however, is that belonging becomes the next fad.

Those of us of a certain age will remember pogs, and those of us that don’t will be able to insert the relevant childhood fad from their epoch (see Pokémon, Cabbage Patch, Furby’s et al.). They appeared overnight, were obsessively traded in playgrounds, rioted over in Woolworths and vanished just as quickly. More recently, I was reminded of this while sitting with a cuppa the other night, watching my daughter open a gift from her Nana: a squishy dumpling – the latest playground, TikTok and YouTube craze.

The anticipation was electric. Which dumpling would it be? Then came the reveal, a few energetic squishes… and almost immediately, the magic was gone. The dumpling was put aside, replaced by the next thing calling for attention.

Belonging and mattering in FE cannot be allowed to follow that trajectory. They cannot be our latest shiny pedagogical playthings we squeeze for impact before discarding when novelty fades or when data becomes negatively affected.

The renewed emphasis on inclusion across the system makes this moment different. The SEND White Paper and reform agenda mark a genuine call to arms for inclusive education, setting expectations that learners with additional and complex needs belong in mainstream post‑16 spaces.

Alongside this, the evolving Ofsted inspection framework has elevated inclusion and belonging to a top tier priority, arguably for the first time in such explicit terms in the sector’s history. This is not aesthetic inclusion or rhetorical belonging; it is structural, inspected and consequential.

And yet, there are implicit and uncomfortable consequences to doing this work properly.

If belonging becomes real rather than performative, attendance may dip, progress may be less linear and less rapid. Safeguarding and welfare concerns may rise. On paper, this looks like decline, in lived reality, it often means something else entirely. Learners who would previously have been excluded, withdrawn, ‘managed out’ or quietly redirected elsewhere are now here. They are visible. They are staying. They matter enough for us to notice their distress rather than remove it from the dataset.

In our endeavour for quality in FE we continuously strive for “nice” and “clean” data. Attendance figures that reassure, progress measures that glide upwards, indicators of cohorts that do not ask much of overwhelmed systems. Inclusion disrupts that comfort. Trauma‑informed practice does not smooth the picture; it reveals it. Attachment‑aware approaches do not reduce complexity; they legitimise it.

This is not to say that FE should settle for poor outcomes or abandon ambition. We can retain learners and achieve outstanding data. We might. We should. However, we must be honest about the reality of the challenge.

Creating a genuine culture of belonging and mattering stretches staffing models, it is absent from costed funding formulas and challenges professional resilience in unprecedented ways. It asks us to tolerate the discomfort of data that makes us squirm and sometimes feel squished without abandoning our values.

Belonging and mattering are not squishy dumplings.
They are not designed for momentary pleasure.

They are moral commitments: slow, purposeful, relational and necessary. If we are serious about inclusion, we must be prepared to hold onto those commitments far longer than a six‑year‑old engages with a playground trend.

In FE, belonging and mattering are not a phase. They are the mission.

Movers & Shakers: Edition 536

This student artwork made me rethink burnout in today’s learners

Over several psychology lessons, we’d been discussing addiction, burnout, coping mechanisms, overstimulation, and all the ways people try to regulate themselves through modern life. Conversations bounced between theories, memes, energy drinks, vaping, doom scrolling, and the challenge of simply staying functional.

A few days later, one of my students came back with a piece of artwork inspired by those discussions that honestly stopped me in my tracks.

You could tell immediately it wasn’t something thrown together quickly. He must have spent hours on it.

At the centre of the page was a single word:

Burnout.

Around it spiralled a chaotic explosion of imagery: energy drinks, cigarettes, pills, fast food wrappers, cartoon faces, graffiti-style text, fragmented thoughts, humour, noise and overstimulation. Hidden amongst the chaos were references pulled directly from our classroom discussions and activities. Even the small “nuggets duck” from one of our lessons appeared tucked into the imagery, one of the only coloured parts of the entire piece.

The artwork was crowded, funny, bleak, creative and visually overwhelming all at once.

I took the artwork to our art department almost immediately, who offered to print it on A1 paper. After sharing it with marketing, they wanted to photograph the student with the piece and feature it across college social media and newsletters. Before long, conversations expanded into notebooks, T-shirts and ways to celebrate the student’s creativity more widely.

But what struck me most was not simply the artistic talent on display – although the skill was undeniable – but the conversations the artwork immediately triggered amongst staff.

Standing around the piece together, many of us found ourselves reflecting on an uncomfortable truth:

We do not fully know what it feels like to grow up as a teenager in today’s world.

Today’s students are navigating constant stimulation, online comparison, digital visibility, and levels of connectivity that simply did not exist when many of us were young. While every generation experiences pressure, the environments surrounding young people now feel fundamentally different in both pace and intensity.

Perhaps part of the disconnect in education is that adults often interpret student behaviour through outdated assumptions about adolescence, without fully recognising how dramatically the emotional and cognitive landscape of growing up has changed.

This artwork seemed to visualise that tension perfectly.

Many students arrive at college already carrying layers of pressure before learning has even begun: academic stress, financial worries, disrupted sleep, uncertainty about the future, and the constant background noise of digital life. Increasingly, students talk openly about needing music, humour, snacks, caffeine, or constant stimulation simply to help them focus and regulate themselves enough to engage.

What fascinated me most was the way this student transformed those conversations into something visual and meaningful. The cluttered composition mirrored overload. Humour sat alongside darker themes in a way that felt deeply familiar to contemporary youth culture: “everything is chaos, so let’s laugh about it.”

Most strikingly, despite all the humour, noise and overstimulation, the piece still carried a sense of emptiness, as though the chaos itself was masking a deeper emotional exhaustion.

As a practitioner researching attention and engagement within further education, the piece reinforced something I increasingly observe in classrooms: students often communicate their emotional worlds more honestly through creativity, humour and symbolism than through formal discussion alone.

Perhaps some of the most meaningful conversations in education begin not with policies or statistics, but with authentic student voice.

Because students are communicating constantly.

The question is whether education systems are prepared to truly see what they are showing us.

I want to open up property careers to the people currently shut out

When I’m asked why I’m launching the new social mobility campaigning company Common Ground, I simply say this: people in charge of creating places and communities, including major public building projects, schools, and hospitals, should reflect the communities they serve.

Common Ground launches at a critical time for FE colleges. Our latest polling, commissioned for our launch, reveals a significant disconnect between young people and the property industry. There are significant barriers that exist for those who do not go to university but have the talent and aspiration to get into my industry.

The research, carried out by More in Common, found that half of 18-24 year-olds would either not consider a career in the commercial property and real estate industry or simply do not know enough about it to consider it. I think that is a damning reflection of the fact that many young people are left thinking these jobs are ‘not for them’.

It’s polling also reveals that a majority of people (58 per cent) think it is important that people who work in the commercial property and real estate industry are reflective of broader British society. However, only a third (34 per cent) think that the industry does reflect wider society.

Talent is being locked out

We do need more people from disadvantaged backgrounds to secure successful careers in industries and professions that are notoriously elitist. I did go to university, but came from a family background that was barely even working class (nobody was actually in work, several were in prison), I lived in a council house, was on free school meals and had no role models. That’s why I champion the idea that young people ‘can’t be what they can’t see’ and I am sure that aspiration is shared by the vast majority of staff and students in FE colleges.

Industries in the built environment talk about inclusion. But I don’t think they tackle the underlying structures that exclude people in the first place: school and college outreach is often tokenistic, funded pathways go to the wrong people, and nobody thinks to explain the rules of the game. The profession over-relies on informal networks and traditional routes. It excludes a huge amount of talent.

What that often means is that our industry’s apprenticeships often don’t actually reach the people they were intended for. Instead, they get taken up by young people who were already on a pathway to university. I have seen that with my own eyes.

Common Ground’s approach leads on career opportunities specifically around disadvantage, not just around non-university pathways. We target the right people from the start, working with FE colleges, schools, membership bodies and community partners. And we avoid open application processes as, quite frankly, these favour the most confident and supported.

We are designing out requirements that exclude the disadvantaged, those who can’t compete financially and those who don’t know the rules of the game. We focus on wraparound support, not just placement. We must make the routes available to those currently locked out.

Opening doors, not ticking boxes

Diversity must mean more than just replacing one gender for another, or ‘token’ hires. It’s about opening up routes to successful careers for people who have, until now, been ignored, excluded or discriminated against, either because they are from the ‘wrong’ class, been in care, disabled, LGBTQ+ or neurodiverse.

This hasn’t come from a single moment. It’s the result of years working in construction and property and seeing the barriers remain firmly in place. Success is still overwhelmingly shaped by who has access to the right education, the right contacts and the financial ability to take unpaid work experience roles or internships.

What has changed for me is the timing. Now that I have stepped down from running LocatED, I have the opportunity to drive this change as a core part of a new business, not just a side hustle as it was in my previous role. It comes at the right time. We face challenges around skills shortages, public sector capacity, climate resilience and the condition of social infrastructure – there is a sense of urgency!

Adult education institutions are being dismantled by stealth

As the country’s need for a skilled and adaptable workforce continues to grow and evidence increasingly demonstrates the role that community education plays in improving wellbeing, social cohesion and life opportunities, it is deeply concerning that policy and structural changes appear to be moving in the opposite direction. Rather than strengthening and investing in specialist adult education institutions that have successfully delivered these outcomes for generations, government-led reforms are accelerating a trend towards their merger into larger further education colleges, often driven by financial pressures and structural restructuring.

This is not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a broader pattern that has emerged gradually over recent years. It is a worrying direction of travel. While one or two mergers may be regarded as successful, the longer-term jury is still out. There has been little robust evaluation of whether these changes preserve the distinctive qualities that made these institutions successful in the first place, or whether something important and irreplaceable is being lost.

There is also a wider question about the policy decisions that have brought us to this point. The erosion of specialist adult education institutions has not happened through an open public debate about their value or purpose, nor through meaningful consultation about whether their distinctive role should continue. Instead, it has occurred through changes in status, governance and funding arrangements. The move to statutory college status has weakened institutional independence and reshaped governance arrangements, while funding methodologies designed around mainstream provision for young people often fail to recognise the distinctive costs and benefits of residential and specialist adult education models.

England has a rich history of specialist adult education institutions, many founded over 100 years ago with a mission to widen participation, support social mobility and strengthen democracy through learning. Institutions such as WM College, Mary Ward Centre, Ruskin College, Hillcroft College, Morley College, City Lit, Northern College and Fircroft were established with a clear social purpose and a belief that adult education should transform lives, not simply deliver qualifications.

Recent years have seen mergers and restructures across the sector, including Northern College merging into Barnsley and Ruskin College becoming part of the University of West London. While these changes may have brought operational benefits, there has been little assessment of what may have been lost in identity, mission and social impact.

Over time, adult education policy has shifted away from broader lifelong learning towards a narrower focus on employment and economic outcomes. Funding has increasingly followed qualifications linked to labour market priorities, often at the expense of community learning, integration, wellbeing and wider social outcomes. Public spending on adult education and skills has fallen significantly, while participation in publicly funded classroom-based learning has dropped dramatically over the last two decades.

Specialist adult education institutions have played a unique role in England’s learning landscape for more than a century. They were never simply places where adults gained qualifications; they created spaces where people from different backgrounds could come together to learn, live, debate and grow in ways that changed lives and strengthened communities. Their distinctive character bringing together learning, personal development, social connection and civic engagement cannot easily be replicated within the hustle and bustle of predominantly 16-19 FE colleges.

As these historic institutions increasingly merge into the wider FE system, there is a real risk something special will disappear. A distinctive feature of several of these organisations has been their residential element, providing immersive learning experiences and opportunities to build lasting communities.

At a time of increasing social fragmentation and division, we need places that bring communities together more than ever. Residential and community-based adult education has been doing exactly that for over 100 years. We should not underestimate the contribution these institutions have made, or the significance of what could be lost.

Across many countries, adult learning is increasingly recognised as essential to addressing skills shortages, supporting longer working lives and improving wellbeing. Yet at the very moment when lifelong learning has never been more important, England risks diminishing institutions that have spent generations doing precisely that.

Once these distinctive institutions, traditions and approaches disappear, they are incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to rebuild.

The Milburn review is a watershed moment for FE

The prime minister referred to the Alan Milburn review into young people and work as “sobering”. My own reaction was nothing less than jaw-dropping; to see the failure of historic education policy laid bare in such stark terms was certainly not what I expected.

The report points to many factors contributing to a situation where over a million young people are not in education, employment or training (NEET). Milburn sees it as “shameful” that so much was spent on welfare support for young people compared with getting them into jobs. The world has moved on; entry-level jobs are no longer in such plentiful supply. What employers require and what the education system provides are in many ways poles apart, and the ability of employers to respond to the changing needs of this young generation is a key challenge.

The review is being described as a “landmark” and appears to present a watershed moment, perhaps as consequential as the Tomlinson and Dearing reports or, in time, more so. Yet this is “only” an interim report. It sets out the current situation and evidence. A sequel later in the year will provide a suggested direction of travel.

At this stage, here are my takeaways:

First, the acknowledgement that vocational and technical education has been subject to continued policy churn (unlike academic education) must be taken seriously as a core contributing factor to why young people, employers, schools and parents struggle to navigate the system. As far back as I can remember, every successive government has vowed to simplify the landscape and create clarity. Instead, they cause further confusion and unwittingly ensure that further education remains “close to impassable”.

The obsession that traditional sixth form and university education is the golden ticket to success and that alternatives like apprenticeships and technical education are “for someone else’s child” is so deeply ingrained in the psyche of this country. This risks making so many thousands of young people feel second best. It is hard to see how this narrative can change, but it must.

Second, we need to avoid the temptation to rush to piecemeal solutions. As the report suggests, countless initiatives that appear reactive and have effectively been sticking plasters have not worked. In recent memory, I can think of traineeships and Kickstart, now we have foundation apprenticeships and the youth guarantee.

Apprenticeships themselves, arguably the gold standard in getting young people into work, have seen starts for this age category reduce by 40 per cent. Pledging 300,000 new work placements is now the latest well-meaning response. To raise the profile of technical education in schools, we are seeing calls again for colleges to provide day release opportunities – when many cannot accommodate demand for 16–19-year-olds. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do any of these things, but my reading of the report is that we need a fundamental rethink and a much more coordinated approach to how we address youth employment.

Third, the review must lead to a debate about some of the current activities colleges are required to do. There is reference in the report to maths and English re-sits and surely the time is ripe again to discuss the merits of ploughing massive resource and cost into a policy for a return of one in five students being successful. Years of following this policy clearly hasn’t helped more young people into employment. The report’s acknowledgement of the significant strain due to college and school support for mental health and deficiencies in social work must be recognised more fully.

We should also start a conversation that focuses on the “engagement” of young people, broader than the blunt instrument of classroom-based attendance. As a colleague recently said to me, we could have attendance rates that satisfy policymakers and regulators far better by not taking on those who have struggled with this at school – but that’s not who we are, and we meet people where they are.

Finally, there must be reflection on the report’s claim that FE has been made weaker and hollowed out by the lack of adequate funding over a sustained period of time.

Yes, the current government has started to right this wrong. Yet, stark inequalities still exist across the wider education system and in terms of addressing the most disadvantaged young people, including those most likely to become NEET, the report states that FE isn’t some “marginal landscape” but “it is the landscape”. However, it is a landscape that needs more flexibility, parity of esteem with other parts of the education system and demand-led funding to meet the challenge.

The suggestion that funding should be outcomes (i.e. destinations) based needs a cautious response and careful thought – but there is no denying that greater accountability for where students go as opposed to just “bums on seats” and qualifications passed should be treated seriously.

It’s great we’ve been able to demonstrate greater numbers of young people into bricklaying and electrical courses, but how many are we actually progressing into the industry? It’s time to shift the conversation.

City & Guilds threatened with legal action over ‘disgraceful’ staff cuts plan

A union is threatening awarding giant City & Guilds with “legal and industrial action” over its workforce redundancy plans.

Unite the Union claimed City & Guilds, which is now owned by Greek awarding business PeopleCert, is “advertising for jobs” in Greece and the UK at the same time as running redundancy consultations.

A union spokesperson claimed the company is “unlawfully withholding key information” during transfer consultations and advertising for new recruits when it is “legally required” to give its staff at risk of redundancy first refusal on available roles.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The way PeopleCert is treating these workers is absolutely disgraceful and will not be tolerated.

“Unite will use everything in its power to defend the City & Guilds workforce.”

FE Week understands about 75 roles are at risk, with the majority within the business’s central support functions.

Referencing a presentation shared with investors last year, the union said it believes PeopleCert is ultimately planning to shed around a third of City & Guilds’ 1,300-strong UK workforce.

The presentation suggested plans to relocate some staff roles to Greece, where personnel costs are “up to 50 per cent lower”, through “natural employee churn”.

The legal and industrial threats are a public escalation of a growing dispute between the awarding business’ staff and their new executives.

‘Inadequate disclosure’

PeopleCert bought City & Guilds’ awarding and commercial business from the 148-year-old charity in October for about £166 million.

The sale is the subject of a live Charity Commission inquiry, with the regulator examining “trustees’ decision making” and large bonuses paid to senior executives after the transaction. PeopleCert itself also launched its own probe into the “conduct” of top City & Guilds executives during the sale. Neither inquiry has reported yet.

According to a leaked letter, seen by FE Week, Unite the Union regional officer Peter Storey accused the new owners of failing to involve staff at a formative stage of the redundancy process.

He also alleged “inadequate disclosure” about why job losses are necessary and “insufficient transparency” around the methodology of choosing which roles should be cut.

Storey said the union would no longer participate in the redundancy consultation.

He added that an “absence of management ownership” has created huge levels of anger and a lack of trust.

The union representative also called for “urgent” involvement of conciliation service ACAS and “direct engagement” from interim CEO Andy Moss.

Storey said: “PeopleCert has been dishonest from the moment it took over City & Guilds.

“Without significant movement from the company, this dispute will continue to escalate, including through potential legal and industrial action.”

‘Process remains ongoing’

A spokesperson for PeopleCert said: “We remain committed to conducting a meaningful collective consultation with colleagues and their representatives in good faith and in accordance with our legal obligations.

“We have provided extensive information on the proposals, responded to requests for further detail, and continue to engage constructively with representatives and impacted colleagues whose contribution to date has been valuable.

“No outcomes have been predetermined. The purpose of consultation is to seek feedback on the proposals, explore ways to avoid, reduce and mitigate proposed redundancies where possible, and consider alternative approaches.

“That process remains ongoing. We have agreed additional time for collective consultation discussions and continue to meet regularly with Unite and colleague representatives. We recognise this will be a difficult and uncertain time for colleagues whose roles may be impacted and are committed to handling the process with care, fairness and respect.”

The spokesperson added their current redundancy proposals follow a review of the business earlier this year and are “separate to previous discussions on the workforce”.

The proposed changes are designed to “further strengthen and enhance” the reliability and quality of City & Guilds qualifications, they said.

More strikes set for England’s largest exam board

Hundreds of staff at exam giant AQA will strike for four more days from Friday over an ongoing pay row.

Around 400 members of Unison will walk out after AQA leaders refused to meet for talks to discuss an alleged 10 per cent real-terms pay cut to staff pay over the last five years.

Unison is calling for pay restoration, which it previously said would require a 7.3 per cent rise this year. AQA issued what it described as a “generous” 5.2 per cent average pay increase instead.

The union warned the latest escalation of the dispute could cause delays in students receiving their results this summer – but the exam board claimed the series will still be delivered “smoothly”.

Assessors, exam paper authors and customer service staff will take part in the latest strikes from June 5 to 8 across three AQA sites, including its Manchester headquarters, as well as its offices in Guildford and Milton Keynes.

The dates have been chosen to disrupt training for examiners planned to take place this weekend.

It follows three days of industrial action last month. Staff have since refused to carry out overtime and on-call work.

Unison claimed that the dispute has so far caused disruption to exam papers being sent out.

An AQA spokesperson said: “The 5.2 per cent pay settlement is affordable, competitive and sustainable for AQA – bearing in mind the rate of inflation is 2.8 per cent, according to the Bank of England. The union’s claim is flatly wrong: our pay rises in recent years have consistently exceeded inflation.

“AQA is an education charity that doesn’t seek a profit – and yet we have awarded a pay increase in excess of our fee increases, which is a generous approach by any standards.”

They added that Unison was attempting to “alarm” students and parents for their own purposes.

“We will not allow results to be delayed – indeed, we can assure those sitting AQA qualifications that the summer exam series will be delivered smoothly and to the high quality that schools and young people have come to expect from us.”

The exam board’s staff previously went on strike on GCSE and A Level results days in 2022.

AQA sets more than half of GCSE and A Level papers taken in England, with about 1.4 million pupils sitting their qualifications every year.

Unison AQA branch secretary Eoin MacGabhann said: “Staff who keep the exam system running and make sure millions of students get accurate results on time deserve to be paid fairly for their work.

“AQA employees have seen the value of their wages slashed in real terms in recent years, while living costs have soared.

“Nobody wants to be on strike, but bosses’ refusal to even talk means workers have been left with little choice.

“Staff know how important this time of year is, but unless AQA is serious about resolving these long-standing issues, further disruption and delays in students receiving grades look likely.”

FE falls as bootcamps boom in priority skills pipeline

Mainstream further education courses linked to the government’s priority industrial strategy sectors have declined while higher education, apprenticeships and skills bootcamps all grew.

Skills England’s first annual skills report showed FE achievements linked to priority occupations fell by 7 per cent between 2021-22 and 2023-24, from 48,000 to 45,000.

Over the same period, apprenticeships in those sectors rose by 27 per cent and higher education achievements by 14 per cent. Meanwhile, the rollout of skills bootcamps now means the short courses account for 18,000 learner achievements in priority sectors.

New individual sector assessments show mismatches between recent training trends and the volumes or qualification levels needed in some priority sectors.

The priority sectors are advanced manufacturing, clean energy, construction, creative industries, defence, digital and technologies, financial services, health and adult social care, life sciences and professional and business services.

Skills England forecasts that priority occupations in those sectors will grow by almost a quarter, creating 1.8 million extra jobs by 2035.

Analysis of the training pipelines into the priority sectors showed the fastest growth was in skills bootcamps, followed by apprenticeships and higher education.

Its annual report said growing course numbers in construction and digital, for example, “suggests that parts of the education and training pipeline are expanding”, but added that course growth by itself was “not a guarantee” that job-ready learners with applied capability and work-based experience would meet demand for specific priority roles.

Level crossing

Skills England’s ten sector needs reports reveal a growing mismatch between recent training trends and the volumes and qualification levels its analysis indicates the economy requires.

Across all priority sectors, 62 per cent of new jobs are expected to require training at level 4 and above and 38 per cent at level 2 or 3.

Adult social care, clean energy and construction are the only sectors where most demand is at levels 2 or 3.

In adult social care, Skills England said 79 per cent of projected new jobs will require level 2 or 3 qualifications and estimated the sector will need 281,300 extra workers by 2035. That is on top of 404,000 workers leaving roles that will need to be replaced.

Recent growth in training is at higher levels, where Skills England said there will be less demand.

FE achievements at levels 2 and 3 dropped by 24 per cent between 2021-22 and 2023-24, and levels 2 and 3 apprenticeship achievements only rose by only 1 per cent.

But nursing and health and social care apprenticeships at levels 4 and 5 grew by 54 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, adult social care bootcamps boomed from 240 to 700.

Training in the construction pipeline however appears to be more aligned. Skills England said 59 per cent of projected additional jobs will require level 2 or 3 qualifications.

Its analysis of recent training trends showed building and construction apprenticeships were up 60 per cent, and reported bootcamp outcomes rose from 100 in 2021-22 to 5,000 in 2023-24.

But growth in levels 2 and 3 further education courses only grew by 7 per cent over that period.

Higher power

In other priority sectors, demand is overwhelmingly at higher level training with training track records to match.

In digital and technologies, defence, life sciences and creative industries, at least 80 per cent of projected new jobs are expected to need qualifications at levels 4 and above.

Skills England’s analysis of those sectors’ training needs showed existing provision is already dominated by higher education and higher-level apprenticeships.

The annual report said higher education accounted for more than two-thirds of learners entering priority occupations, while level 2 and 3 routes through apprenticeships or further education accounted for just over a quarter.

It also said further education had lower overall alignment with priority occupations, with 29 per cent of employed recent FE leavers entering priority occupations, compared with 54 per cent from higher education and 48 per cent from apprenticeships.

Built by bootcamps

The clearest example of bootcamps driving growth was in construction, where ministers are relying on the skills system to deliver their policies on housebuilding, clean energy and infrastructure.

Skills England said construction-related course growth was “partly due to the rise in the number of skills bootcamps”.

Construction courses linked to priority occupations grew by 25 per cent between 2021-22 and 2023-24, but that fell to 16 per cent when bootcamps are excluded.

Skills England’s construction skills needs assessment warned the sector faced the largest projected increase in workers of all the priority sectors.

It projected 493,000 extra workers across 30 occupations would be needed by 2035, largely driven by the government’s target to build 1.5 million new homes in this parliament. A further 595,000 workers are expected to leave the sector and need replacing, bringing the total demand for workers to over one million.

Data warning

A technical annex published alongside the annual report and ten skills needs assessments highlighted that available skills bootcamp data is limited.

Unlike FE, HE and apprenticeships, there is no verified “achievement” data for skills bootcamps. Skills England instead used the third and final funding milestone for “outcomes” as a proxy for “evidence of a successful outcome”.

It also said all bootcamps mapped to priority occupations were selected through “expert judgment-based analysis” by DfE’s skills bootcamps team.

Skills bootcamps have faced repeated questions over outcomes and quality over the years.

FE Week reported last year that almost two-thirds of learners in 2022-23 did not secure a job or progress at work after their course, despite starts more than doubling.

Earlier government-commissioned research found more than half of learners on wave two bootcamps already held a level 4 qualification or above, while some participants received “inappropriate” interviews despite guaranteed job interviews being a core part of the programme.

The technical annex also warned against treating the sector forecasts as directly comparable.

Methods used to select priority occupations and project future demand were chosen by sponsoring government departments, with “support from Skills England analysts where required”.

As a result, the annex said methods “differ by sector”.

Across the sector assessments, Skills England repeatedly said projections should be treated as indicative trends and orders of magnitude, not precise forecasts.