Latest news from FE Week

Colleges could pay teachers more but are choosing not to

The pay gap between school and college teachers has reached its widest level in 15 years.

But we rarely hear of similar pay gaps for college CEOs, senior leaders, professional staff or other college employees.

Do we pay teaching staff less simply because we can? And could we do something about it if we wished?

In addition to funding, there are four reasons for the gap:

School teachers are graduates, college teachers often aren’t

Almost every schoolteacher is a graduate, compared to about half of college teachers. The UK graduate earnings premium has fallen sharply but is still about 45 per cent. Colleges sell higher education courses as a way of increasing earnings, so surely we would expect schoolteachers to earn more?

Sixth form college teaching is a graduate profession and a comparison of staff costs with general FE colleges is instructive.

The audited finance record for 2023-24 shows median sixth form college teacher pay (including pensions) at £64,128 is 25 per cent higher than for general FE colleges. There is also less variability in sixth form college figures, suggesting they match schoolteacher salaries.

Type of college	Median teacher pay cost/teacher FTE	Upper quartile teacher pay cost/teacher FTE
Sixth form colleges	£64,128	£66,471
General FE colleges	£51,163	£55,372
Land-based colleges	£49,185	£55,943

College teachers have fewer options to increase pay

While sixth form college teachers could all work in schools, that is not true of college teachers. However, it is argued college teachers can always go back to industry.

But the latest Office for National Statistics data shows FE teaching pays better than equivalent roles in leisure, sport, business, arts, hair and beauty, and even some areas of construction. Only areas like finance, engineering and IT offer a better financial deal.

Colleges do not discriminate in favour of teachers like schools do

Colleges are scrupulously fair when it comes to pay rises. Our negotiating machinery treats all college staff (other than senior leaders) in the same way.

But the government treats schoolteachers as a special case with their own pay review body. Unsurprisingly, they get bigger pay awards and better progression.

Colleges divert resources to non-teaching activity

In recent years there’s been an uplift in employer and business development-related activity in colleges, including things like sponsorship of events. Our most expensive staff spend much of their time doing this.

But the funding model of schools and colleges is identical – funding follows the learner. Trust CEOs, school heads and sixth form college leaders don’t spend as much time on such activities.

And the latest finance record shows this increase in employer activity has been accompanied by drops in related student numbers in the last three years.

HE numbers are down 30 per cent, 16-18 apprentices fell 3 per cent, adult apprentices dropped 20 per cent and adult students declined by 1 per cent.

In contrast, the boom in 16-18 student numbers means colleges increasingly resemble schools in terms of their student population and levels of study. This presents real questions about the effectiveness of employer engagement.

To close the gap, here are some suggestions for an FE teacher pay policy:

Take teachers out of national negotiations and commit to at least matching the rises given to schoolteachers, and to senior teams, even if that leaves less available for other staff.
Use audited finance record data for average FTE teacher cost (which is surely a more important league table than CEO pay) to put pressure on colleges well adrift from the median.
Push governing bodies and senior teams to scrutinise their spending on employer engagement and sponsorship activities to ensure it’s worth the investment.

If we aren’t that serious about this issue, then let’s be honest with our teachers and say we’ll let government funding and the labour market dictate salary levels instead.

‘Computer says no’ is a huge concern among young people

AI is increasingly shaping how recruitment works. CharityJob’s latest research shows young people are particularly concerned about its impact on fairness, transparency and access to opportunity.

Somewhere between clicking ‘apply’ and receiving a rejection, a growing number of people are disappearing from the recruitment process altogether. There’s no feedback. No interview. No opportunity to explain who they are or what they could become.

CharityJob’s latest research into AI and recruitment raises some uncomfortable questions about how hiring is changing. Artificial intelligence is often framed as a tool that makes recruitment faster and fairer. In reality, for many young jobseekers, I often wonder, could it be doing the opposite?

Young people are the most uneasy about AI’s growing role in recruitment. Those aged 24 and under are consistently more concerned than older candidates about its impact on job opportunities and fairness. They are also the most likely to say they would rather a recruiter reviewed their application than an algorithm.

That matters enormously for young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). This group includes 16 to 24-year-olds navigating disrupted education, caring responsibilities, health challenges or periods of unemployment. Many are actively engaging with further education, training providers and employability programmes to get back on track. There is a risk that younger people, particularly those already facing disruption, feel this uncertainty most acutely.

Yet CharityJob’s research suggests even recruiters themselves are uneasy about this approach. Only around three in ten recruiters currently use AI in hiring. And just one in five say they trust AI’s recommendations. The majority oppose its use in final hiring decisions. The research also shows that nearly two thirds of candidates would feel disadvantaged if AI were used to screen their application, rising further among younger respondents. At the same time, almost seven in ten candidates say it has become harder to stand out as more applicants use AI to optimise CVs and cover letters.

For young jobseekers, this creates a double bind. They are encouraged to show motivation, transferable skills and individuality, yet are competing in a system that they perceive to be increasingly rewarding standardisation and pattern-matching.

Recruiters themselves are not convinced that AI improves fairness. Fewer than one in four believe it makes recruitment fairer. And confidence in its ability to reduce bias has fallen sharply over the past year. Concerns about transparency, overreliance and the risk of overlooking strong candidates remain widespread.

According to our research, AI use appears to be focused on driving efficiencies in things like scheduling interviews and sending bulk responses, rather than at the early screening stage, where decisions matter most.

While AI use is highest among candidates aged 25-49, younger candidates under 24 stand out not for heavier usage, but for significantly higher levels of concern about AI’s impact on fairness and job opportunities. For under-24s, AI already feels like a threat rather than an opportunity: 86 per cent are concerned about its future, 91 per cent want a human recruiter, not an algorithm, reviewing their application, and 67 per cent believe AI is reducing job opportunities. What they are asking for instead is transparency, proportionality and human judgement at the points that matter most.

Yet transparency is exactly where the system is currently falling short. More than nine in ten candidates believe recruiters should be open if they are using AI to assess applications, but most say they have never been told whether this is happening. On the employer side, the picture is just as concerning, with nearly eight in ten recruiters admitting they have no formal guidelines on the use of AI in recruitment and offering little or no guidance to candidates.

In the absence of clear policies, young jobseekers are left guessing. They don’t know when AI is being used, how decisions are made or whether their skills are being assessed fairly. If we are serious about widening access to work for young jobseekers, AI cannot be allowed to become another invisible barrier. Young people don’t need the odds stacked further against them. They need a fair shot and someone, preferably an actual human somewhere in the process, willing to actually look.

‘Meets expectations’ isn’t good enough if old mindset persists

When Ofsted confirmed the removal of the overall effectiveness grade, I welcomed the decision. For years, that single-word judgement dominated headlines, banners, leadership discussions and tender requirements.

It was a blunt instrument that consumed unnecessary deliberation time during inspection and likely skewed decision-making. Its absence should, in theory, take some of the heat out of inspection.

But removing the overall grade does not remove the culture that grew around it.

A new challenge is emerging as inspections under the revised framework take place: a branding problem with the grading scale.

Under the previous framework, the centre of the bell curve of inspection outcomes broadly sat above ‘good’. Sector shorthand evolved accordingly. Leaders aimed for at least ‘good’. Governors asked whether provision was ‘good’. Staff knew where they stood if feedback suggested they were working at a ‘good’ standard.

Under the revised framework, that centre sits above ‘meets expectations’. That is the structural shift Ofsted has made. Even so, more ‘needs attention’ grades are being awarded than ‘requires improvement’ were previously, as Ofsted has highlighted.

Yet in many organisations, I’ve noticed a translation happening. People mentally convert the new scale back into the old one. ‘Strong’ becomes the new ‘good’. ‘Meets expectations’ is interpreted as something less than acceptable.

That is not what the framework intends, and I’d argue it’s within our gift to address this rather than wait for an unlikely change in the framework.

Culture takes years to unravel

This matters because any inspection system brings both intended and unintended consequences. When grades were removed from teaching observations, the intention was to reflect extensive research showing both the damage caused by grading individual lessons and the lack of validity in judging teaching quality from a single observation.

Yet the culture built around grading lessons took years to unravel. Even where providers stopped using grades, teachers still asked the same question at the end of feedback conversations: “But what grade would that have been?”

The culture did not disappear simply because the system changed – something social scientists call cultural lag.

The revised inspection grades risk following the same path. Even without an overall effectiveness judgement, organisations can recreate the same pressure if they interpret the framework through the lens of the old system.

The phrase ‘meets expectations’ can sound modest. In everyday language it may imply adequacy rather than strength. But within the inspection model, it means something quite different.

It describes provision that is working as it should. Learners are benefiting. Systems are functioning. Standards are being delivered. While ambition for improvement is essential, it should not come at the expense of balance.

‘Meeting expectations’ can, and should, be regarded as success. If you have been through an inspection recently, you’ll know it’s not easy to hit every indicator in the toolkit, and I don’t think we should shy away from calling it a checklist with nuance.

Perhaps the issue, therefore, is not the wording itself but the narrative attached to it.

This matters particularly for governing boards or senior leaders further removed from the mechanics of Ofsted inspection, such as employer-providers or universities.

Understanding recalibration

Without clear explanation, some will understandably anchor the new scale to the old one. And that risks recreating the high-stakes pressure that the reforms intended to reduce.

Those furthest from the inspection process, yet accountable for outcomes, need support from leaders to understand the recalibration. The most common outcome now is ‘meets expectations’. That’s where the bell curve sits.

The revised framework’s success may depend less on Ofsted and more on how the sector chooses to use it. We can avoid the public flogging that poorer overall grades once triggered, normalise honest conversations where attention is needed, and celebrate meeting expectations as well as exceeding them.

Leaders have an opportunity to shape the narrative. That means being clear, internally and externally, about what the new grades represent. It means briefing governors and employers carefully.

The framework has shifted. The culture needs time to catch up.

We must measure what matters in this new era of AI upskilling

In the three years since generative AI entered the public consciousness, it has moved faster than any technological shift in our history. In 2025 the skills and education sector had to grapple with how to equip people for that shift, leading to a year of profound tension.

We were caught between an economy sprinting toward an AI-driven future and a regulatory system that moves at a more measured pace.

Skills England in its AI skills for the UK workforce report characterised it as “slow curriculum responsiveness to emerging AI tools and sector-specific needs”.

The Department for Education and Skills England have now made admirable progress. By launching a dedicated level 4 AI apprenticeship standard, committing to a faster approvals process and signalling the start of shorter ‘apprenticeship units’ from next month, the government is paving the path that employers and providers have been walking for months.

The key question now is how to measure the quality and impact of these skills programmes.

Existing measures that merely tell us whether a learner passes a programme do not adequately capture the value delivered. It does not tell us whether the government’s aims on AI skills have been delivered – nor does it demonstrate to employers the return on their investment.

AI’s rapid growth means we must keep pace with best practice in measuring successful outcomes, just as we’ve broadened the scope of what an apprenticeship can be.

Bridging the innovation-regulation gap

By the time the dedicated AI and automation apprenticeship standard fully enters the market, it will have been 3.5 years since the launch of ChatGPT.

UK businesses couldn’t wait that long. So providers innovated within the system we had. At Multiverse we integrated AI training into relevant existing standards, like business analyst.

Broadly, it worked: we’ve equipped thousands of people with the skills to harness this powerful technology. Those skills have had real-world impact: bringing down waiting lists in hospitals; offering charity support services to more people; and enabling small businesses to innovate at a fraction of the typical cost.

But businesses didn’t yet know exactly what AI skills they required and for whom; and not all of our assumptions on what would work came right.

Measuring what matters

Apprenticeships by nature require skills to be applied on the job. It’s not easy to capture the success of that only through an assessment at the end.

That’s why we measure success in other ways too: things like costs avoided, revenue generated, issues solved for local residents, and better patient outcomes. And at a learner level, we track promotions and pay rises; nearly half of our apprentices secure a promotion.

Yet the qualification achievement rate (QAR) captures none of it. The primary measure of apprenticeship quality is still whether a learner crossed a finish line – not what they built along the way.

QAR is a lagging indicator. It measures against decisions made up to two years ago or more. In AI, two years may as well be 20.

If a learner gains the skills they need to secure a promotion and then moves into a new role before reaching an end-point assessment, the system records that as a failure of retention. But in reality it’s a triumph of social mobility and economic impact.

Better success metrics exist in other areas of education. The Higher Education Statistics Agency’s graduate outcomes survey, tracking salaries and career paths, is a great example: has your study enabled you to advance in your career and earn more?

We know training pays dividends. The Learning and Work Institute found how those who access training see a 15 per cent salary uplift across their lifetime compared to those who don’t. Why not measure the size of that prize?

The UK has the potential to lead the world in AI adoption, not least because of its world-class education systems. Our regulatory frameworks should incentivise innovation and impact.

Only then will we move from surviving the AI transition to truly leading it.

Northampton colleges plan to merge next year

Two Northampton colleges are proposing to merge to offer local students a “wider range” of courses and strengthen their finances.

Northampton College and land-based Moulton College – which exited government intervention two years ago – are aiming to merge by January 2027, according to a joint statement today.

The colleges said merging into a single £70 million turnover group will improve local access to courses and open up progression routes that “neither organisation” could deliver alone.

They also promised to become a “more resilient organisation” that can respond to changes in policy, funding and local community needs.

Jason Lancaster, principal of Northampton College, said: “Exploring a merger gives us the opportunity to build an organisation that can meet these expectations and better serve our students and communities.”

An announcement on Moulton College’s website said governors at both colleges have now approved plans to “explore the benefits” of a merger.

It added: “A final decision will be made by the corporations of both colleges once this work is complete and all considerations have been carefully evaluated.

“There is still a long way to go but we are aiming towards January 2027 for completion.”

Public feedback is invited through an online form that allows questions or comments to be submitted.

Moulton College exited seven years of FE Commissioner intervention in 2024, after a turnaround that included selling land and the Department for Education refinancing £13 million in commercial debt.

Its most recent accounts, for 2024-25, show it ended the year with a surplus of £300,000 from a total income of £28 million. The colleges teaches around 4,000 students and employs 400 staff.

Moulton College principal Oliver Symons, who joined in 2024, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to bring together the strengths and expertise of both colleges.

“Our goal is to offer students more choice, clearer progression routes and improved access to specialist facilities. Employers will also benefit from a single, stronger partner that is responsive to local skills needs.”

Northampton College, a general FE college, currently has about 7,000 students and 640 staff.

The college ended 2024-25 with a surplus of £3.3 million on a total income of £45 million.

Northampton College is located in the eastern suburbs of Northampton, relatively close to Moulton College, which sits on the outskirts of the town.

Battery apprenticeship unit added after ‘rapid’ employer consultation

A new apprenticeship unit in battery manufacturing has been announced by Skills England – just days after the first tranche of short course apprenticeship units was unveiled.

Officials said this latest unit has been created following a “rapid consultation” with employers and sector experts to help meet the needs of a new gigafactory under construction in Somerset for global battery business Agratas.

It was developed at pace through Skills England’s new ‘investment and infrastructure skills service’, which was set up to identify where internationally mobile investors and large infrastructure projects face skills challenges.

Industry had told officials that the existing 36-month level 3 battery manufacturing operative apprenticeship was too long and broad in scope for the imminent skills needs of the gigafactory.

A special design workshop was held in early February with the Electrification Skills Network, and representatives from the north east and west midlands battery clusters, followed up by further consultation with Agratas, wider employers and academic experts.

Skills England said this is an example of its new fast-track approach to delivering apprenticeship updates and new apprenticeship units “that are critical to the major projects in just three months”.

It is not clear why the battery manufacturing apprenticeship unit was not announced with the first batch of seven apprenticeship units unveiled last Monday.

The units are designed to be short course alternatives to apprenticeships and are fundable through the reformed growth and skills levy.

Phil Smith, chair of Skills England, said: “This new gigafactory will create thousands of jobs and apprenticeships in the south west and beyond. I’m proud of Skills England’s work at pace with sector experts to find a skills solution that works for them.

“The new battery manufacturing apprenticeship unit will be a valuable addition to the growth and skills levy offer. By working together, we are building the jobs of the future, keeping skills training at the cutting edge.

Officials said the new battery manufacturing unit was launched today (March 23), but it is unclear when delivery can begin.

Like the other seven apprenticeship units, no funding band or typical duration has been assigned. This information is expected to be communicated to the sector from April 1.

The other seven units are in AI leadership, electric vehicle charging point installation and maintenance, electrical fitting and assembly, mechanical fitting and assembly, permanent modular building assembly, solar PV installation, and maintenance and welding.

Initial delivery will be restricted to a “targeted group” of existing apprenticeship providers that already show “strong performance” in the occupational standards linked to the units.

Today’s announcement suggested just one provider will offer the battery manufacturing apprenticeship unit for Agratas. It said UCS College Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the employer “which will see it lead with delivery of training for the new gigafactory”.

Agratas’ new gigafactory, near Bridgwater, in Somerset, is estimated to generate over £700 million in annual economic value to the south west and 4,000 jobs once fully operational.

Paying employers to hire youth ‘risks huge waste’

Employer incentives for hiring young people could be a multi-million pound waste of taxpayers’ cash, experts have warned.

Later this year, the government will roll out two financial bonuses of up to £3,000 for businesses that hire young unemployed people or apprentices.

The incentives are part of a £1 billion package over three years, which includes the ‘jobs guarantee’ subsidised work programme.

But experts said evaluations of past incentive schemes show that while there was a good case for supporting young people in the earlier stages of unemployment, the latest plans risked “deadweight” spending on grants for hires that would have happened anyway.

Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden announced the measures last week, arguing the government needed to help NEETs who are out of work long-term avoid “lifelong scarring effects” on their health and wealth.

The number of NEET young people (not in education, employment or training) has risen to almost one million since a pre-pandemic low of about 800,000.

New incentives

From June, a ‘youth jobs grant’ of £3,000 will be available to employers who hire anyone aged 18 to 24 who has been on universal credit for six months. Around 60,000 people are forecast to be taken on over three years.

Then in October, the government will also pay an ‘apprenticeship incentive’ of £2,000 to small and medium-sized businesses that hire 16 to 24-year-old apprentices.

A £2,000 employer incentive is also available for every young foundation apprentice start, although figures covering August to October last year reveal there were only 36 starts.

Each new grant can be “stacked”, so an SME hiring a foundation apprentice aged 18 to 24 who has been unemployed at least six months could claim grants totalling £7,000, officials have confirmed.

The incentives come alongside a youth guarantee jobs programme for people in receipt of universal credit for 18 months or more, currently launching in six UK regions and due to expand nationally in October.

McFadden has widened the scheme’s scope from 18 to 21-year-olds up to 24-year-olds, more than doubling the eligible group from 30,000 to 72,000.

Deadweight risk

Business groups welcomed the new incentives, but experts warned the policies were likely to benefit only a “small percentage” of the almost one million NEETs.

Xiaowei Xu, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said there was a “good case” for supporting young people before their skills and confidence were “eroded” by long spells out of work.

And she explained wage subsidies should boost long-term youth employment levels by encouraging hires that would not have otherwise taken place – a concept economists call “additionality”.

But offering £3,000 to all employers without checking for additionality could result in “substantial dead weight” spending, Xu warned.

And while a £3,000 grant would reduce the cost of hiring a young person by between 27 and 35 per cent over six months, the benefit of the grant to employers would be “negligible” when spread over the long term, she added.

Xu said it “remains to be seen” how much the government policies would increase long-term employment as they will only benefit a “small share” of the nearly one million NEET young people.

The IfS estimated the 60,000 job grants apply to 420,000 NEET young people, including 100,000 looking for work on universal credit for six to 18 months, and 320,000 on the benefit regime for six months or more for health reasons.

An old tool

Cash incentives for businesses that hire young people and apprentices are an established government policy for boosting uptake.

The government already offers long-running incentives for hiring younger apprentices, including £1,000 for a 16 to 18-year-old’s employment-related costs, and relief on employer national insurance contributions for under-25s that is expected to cost the Treasury £570 million this financial year.

From 2012 to 2014, the government offered a ‘youth contract’ wage incentive of £2,275 for employers hiring 18 to 24-year-olds on the government’s ‘work programme’.

Between 2012 and 2017, the government also offered a £1,500 ‘Apprenticeship Grant for Employers’ to businesses that were new to apprenticeships, had fewer than 50 employees, and recruited an apprentice aged 16 to 24.

Evaluations of both programmes estimated that deadweight accounted for about 22 per cent of apprenticeship grants and 76 per cent of youth contract grants.

However, both studies suggested the schemes were successful at encouraging recruitment of young people and that benefits “substantially surpass the costs”.

Stephen Evans, CEO of the Learning and Work Institute, told FE Week that conclusions about whether incentives were successful were “mixed at best”.

And he said the government risked getting “quite a high level” of deadweight if it was not careful about who it targeted with incentive payments.

An ‘apprenticeship incentive payments’ scheme that ran between 2020 and 2021 paid grants of up £3,000 to 162,000 employers.

Only 20 per cent of employers responding to a DfE survey said this caused them to recruit more.

An independent review of spending during the pandemic later found about £4.7 million was lost to fraud and error through such apprentice and trainee hiring incentives.

The Department for Work and Pensions’ director of work-based skills Kate Ridley-Pepper told FE Week the new apprenticeship incentives would be paid to training providers then forwarded to employers in an attempt to avoid fraud.

Movers & Shakers: Edition 527

Apprenticeship units funding model is ‘stacked against providers’

Training providers have warned the apprenticeship units funding model is “not a winning formula” and could choke off delivery before it begins.

Draft funding rules for the new short courses set to be paid for through the reformed growth and skills levy from next month show funding will be heavily end-loaded and paid on two milestones to providers.

The first 30 per cent of the funding band will be paid once the learner has completed 30 per cent of the planned delivery hours. The second milestone payment will come once the learner has completed all hours and passed their skills test.

It means a provider that delivers 90 per cent of planned hours when a learner drops out risks receiving just 30 per cent of the funding.

On top of this, the Department for Work and Pensions said it would keep the “affordability” of apprenticeship units “under review” and could withdraw a unit with just four weeks’ notice.

Providers fear the model leaves them exposed and could dampen their appetite for involvement.

Simon Ashworth, deputy CEO and director of policy of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “As it stands, the methodology places significantly more risk on providers, with funding heavily end-loaded so providers absorb the upfront costs of delivery. This will create real cashflow pressures.”

He added that despite skills minister Jacqui Smith telling FE Week there was no cap on the amount of levy funding employers could spend on new apprenticeship units, the “reference in the small print to DWP being able to withdraw funding with just four weeks’ notice effectively acts as a backstop”.

“Taken together, this is not a winning formula,” he warned.

High risk, low reward

The government confirmed this week that from next month, apprenticeship units would be available for delivery in seven areas: AI leadership, electric vehicle charging point installation and maintenance, electrical fitting and assembly, mechanical fitting and assembly, permanent modular building assembly, solar PV installation, and maintenance and welding.

The content for apprenticeship units comes from the knowledge and skills from existing apprenticeship occupational standards “needed to address specific critical skills gaps”.

Units will be restricted to employed learners aged 19 or older and involve 30 to 140 hours of training, delivered over one to 16 weeks. Learners will need to pass a “skills test” at the end of their course, delivered by their training provider and validated by their employer, with independent assessment being an option.

Initial delivery will be restricted to a “targeted group” of existing apprenticeship providers that already show “strong performance” in the occupational standards linked to the units.

Funding bands and delivery hours for individual units are still being tested with “critical stakeholders”, but should be confirmed from April 1.

Robert Halfon, former skills minister and now executive director of external affairs at manufacturing giant Make UK, welcomed the “strong focus on critical engineering and manufacturing skills” such as welding, fitting and assembly in the newly announced apprenticeship units.

However, he added that the approach to funding their delivery “must be sustainable for training providers, otherwise employers will find themselves once again unable to access training they want to invest in”.

“Too often, the problem that employers encounter with the skills system is a lack of local provider capacity to deliver the training they need,” Halfon told FE Week.

“A funding model that makes it too risky for providers to deliver apprenticeship units only deepens this problem if it means there is little appetite to offer the courses. Providers need to be backed with the right funding from this new flexibility in the growth and skills levy to ensure that they can offer the right training in the right places.”

Ashworth warned that without a meaningful level of funding to incentivise delivery, it is “hard to see strong take-up”.

“It is now for government to demonstrate whether these new products have real substance or risk being superficial,” he added.

A DWP spokesperson said: “These apprenticeship units will offer employers more flexibility to upskill their staff while addressing the nation’s skills shortage.

“As part of their introduction, consultations will be held with employers and providers.”