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The stop-starts pressures on college apprenticeships

As education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi stood before a sea of college leaders at the Association of Colleges annual conference in November 2021, he issued a “call to arms”: Colleges needed to increase their share of the apprenticeship market.

Back then, around 30 per cent of apprenticeships were delivered by colleges.

“If we really want to transform supply we will have to grow that number,” Zahawi told them. “I know colleges are more than capable of it.”

His plea was nothing new. In 2015, then skills minister Nick Boles challenged colleges to stop letting independent training providers (ITPs) “nick your lunch”.

Successive governments continued to talk up apprenticeship growth. In 2023, skills minister Robert Halfon told colleges to “focus on growth and quality”, while Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell have both called for more apprenticeship opportunities for young people.

Yet, colleges have instead gone backwards. Their apprenticeship starts fell 43 per cent from 99,220 in 2017-18 to 56,260 in 2024-25, while their market share dropped from 26 per cent to 16 per cent.

Colleges’ overall learner numbers fell initially, then increased from 1.22 million in 2020-21 to 1.46 million in 2024-25.

While overall apprenticeship starts have recovered slightly since 2022-23 following five years of decline, colleges, sixth form colleges and councils have continued to lose ground, with over two-thirds of the market now delivered by ITPs.

College outcomes compare favourably with ITPs, whose achievement rates rose from 51 per cent in 2022-23 to 63 per cent in 2024-25 but still trailed colleges, at 69 per cent.

Funding squeeze

Money is one explanation.

Apprenticeship funding rates have largely been fixed in cash terms since 2017, aside from some individual uplifts.

Six of the top 20 standards used by under-25s have received no increase despite significant inflation in staff salaries, construction materials and end-point assessment costs. And more than three-quarters of college apprenticeship starts are with under-25s, almost twice the proportion at private training providers.

In June, Skills minister Jacqui Smith asked Skills England to identify standards that should receive funding increases, but no decision has been forthcoming.

Uneven funding rates disadvantage colleges, which “traditionally see their mission as serving a local catchment area, offering a wide range of standards to reflect the wide range of local industry needs and student ambitions”, explains Andy Forbes, chair of Barking and Dagenham College and former principal of several further education colleges.

While colleges act like local community shops that must “stock a bit of everything but at a higher cost”, ITPs operate more like “big specialist chain stores” which can “cherry-pick particular occupational sectors and levels, and thereby can generate economies of scale through streamlining delivery”.

That breadth makes college apprenticeships less cost-effective, and “with finances so tight many colleges have been forced to slim down their offer”.

For four years, additional government funding intended to support staff pay awards was principally distributed through the 16 to 19 funding formula. Colleges with proportionately larger apprenticeship and adult provision therefore received less support towards their staff costs than those dominated by classroom-based 16 to 19 provision.

That matters particularly for apprenticeship-dependent institutions like Derwentside College, which receives around half its income from apprenticeships. It delivered a third fewer starts in 2024-25 than four years earlier.

This year, a two-year £485 million pay award uplift was extended to providers of non-16 to 19 education, helping to level the playing field.

But the underlying economics remain difficult, with AoC calling for 16-18 apprenticeships to be funded instead through study programme streams.

Jerry White, former CEO of City College Norwich, where starts were down 13.2 per cent in four years, believes it is a “national disgrace” that stagnant funding rates have “actively dis-incentivised” colleges from providing apprenticeship opportunities.

White recalls how when the Ukraine war started, the cost of copper piping for plumbing provision rose by around 35 per cent in a year, with no corresponding increase in the apprenticeship funding rate.

“When you’re running your eyes down the courses that contribute to your bottom line, in many colleges, towards the bottom of that list will be your apprenticeships,” he says.

City College Norwich has a “demographic boom” at 16 to 18 to fill its four plumbing workshops with study programme learners, rather than using that space for “apprenticeships that don’t contribute very much”.

But younger apprentices require considerably more support.

English and maths requirements continue to apply to 16 to 18-year-olds. And young apprentices need “wraparound personal support, mentoring and coaching in basic communication and other employability skills, and mental health support”, says Forbes.

“The current funding levels don’t reflect this, so colleges have the dilemma of either accepting poor retention and achievement rates (a potential Ofsted disaster) or subsidising extra support themselves.”

The qualification achievement rate (QAR) also disincentivises colleges from offering apprenticeships, according to recent research by the Fabian Society.

QAR measures the proportion of learners starting a funded qualification who go on to complete it, and is used by Ofsted during inspections. Whereas leaving a course early to take an apprenticeship may be a positive outcome for a learner, those withdrawals impact colleges’ QAR.

“This tension can lead to a perverse incentive for providers, who may focus on maximising retention rather than supporting students into apprenticeships,” they say.

Nick Bowles, telling colleges to stop letting ITPs “nick your lunch”

Ofsted risk

Poor apprenticeship provision can drag down an otherwise strong inspection for colleges.

Under Ofsted’s previous framework, 20 per cent of college apprenticeship provision was rated ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ between 2020 and 2025, compared with 17 per cent for colleges overall.

Sixth form colleges appear particularly wary. Their apprenticeship starts fell 62 per cent between 2018-19 and 2024-25.

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, puts that partly down to the “world of pain” of apprenticeship bureaucracy and high dropout rates as well as the Ofsted risk.

Even where apprenticeships form only a small part of a college’s provision, a weak judgment can act as a limiting factor on leadership and governance.

“The system doesn’t help inclusive providers in that way,” Kewin says. “So over the years we’ve become more and more homogeneous in terms of curriculum offer, in that most colleges now just focus on 16 to 19.”

Ofsted’s new framework may alter the calculation. By the end of July 2026, only 13 per cent of colleges’ apprenticeship provision was rated ‘needs attention’ under the framework compared with 18 per cent over all categories.

Growth brings quality risks, too. Windsor Forest Colleges Group recorded the largest percentage increase in starts of any college, up 211 per cent to 280 in the four years to 2024-25.

But its achievement rate that year was just 51 per cent, well below the 60 per cent national benchmark, and the college has been working with a specialist from the FE Commissioner’s team. Achievement rates remain an “ongoing challenge”, board minutes state.

Staffing and compliance

Some colleges told Ofsted they narrowed their apprenticeship offer because of difficulties recruiting and retaining high-quality trainers.

Barking and Dagenham’s overall funded learner numbers increased 72 per cent in the four years to 2024-25, while at the same time it experienced the largest percentage reduction in starts of any college, plunging 88 per cent to just 20 starts.

Staffing challenges were a key reason, the college says, particularly in “technical trades, where FE salaries cannot compete with industry rates”.

In 2023, Coventry College was forced to transfer around 150 apprentices to other providers after Ofsted rated its apprenticeship provision ‘inadequate’, blamed partly on “an overreliance on agency staff” after struggles to recruit permanent tutors in plumbing, electrical and carpentry.

Coventry is now reintroducing apprenticeships, a move CEO Carol Thomas describes as a “significant step forward”.

Apprenticeship funding also brings considerable compliance risk for colleges.

Brockenhurst College cited “increasing compliance and administrative requirements” as a reason why its starts plunged 57 per cent in four years to 2024-25.

Meanwhile Kingston Maurward College, now part of Coastland College, became embroiled in a three-year £1.1 million clawback dispute with the Education and Skills Funding Agency. The college subsequently scrapped apprenticeships altogether, and its financial difficulties contributed to its merger with Weymouth College in 2024.

The then-principal Luke Rake said that alongside the risk of further clawbacks, the higher cost of visiting apprentices on rural placements proved challenging.

Andy Forbes, chair of Barking and Dagenham College

National skills bottleneck

Even after colleges successfully train apprentices, completing them brings another set of difficulties.

At Shrewsbury College, some electrical apprentices had to travel for four hours to Exeter for their end-point assessment (EPA) because the college’s own assessment centre was at capacity with no other centres available locally.

An AoC survey last year found 82 per cent of responding colleges experienced EPA delays of over a month, while 43 per cent endured waits of three months or more.

Government reforms are now moving away from the principle of a single EPA and allowing providers to conduct some assessment themselves, potentially removing one bottleneck.

The drop in some types of apprenticeships typically offered by colleges conflicts with national skills priorities.

Skills England estimates the UK will need 12,000 extra electricians by 2030, and 10,000 more plumbers and heating and ventilation workers. Yet electrical apprenticeship starts fell 5.5 per cent in 2024-25, while the main plumbing apprenticeship starts fell for three consecutive years from 2021-22.

Electrical and plumbing apprenticeships are in high demand, but present particular challenges because they typically take at least four years to complete.

“How many people at a young age stay with the same employer for four years?” asks Diana Martin, principal of Dudley College of Technology, where apprenticeship starts fell 41 per cent between 2020-21 and 2024-25.

Local skills improvement plans were supposed to bring employers, colleges and other education providers together to identify and respond to skills needs.

Of the 38 plans approved in 2023, four – Cheshire and Warrington, Cumbria, West Yorkshire and the South East Midlands – specifically pledged to increase apprenticeship take-up, and all followed through on that ambition; but largely through ITPs rather than colleges.

In Cumbria, apprenticeship starts have since fallen at all four of its colleges.

Employers pulling back

Ultimately, colleges cannot create apprenticeships without employers.

A 2023 UCAS study found three in five applicants not pursuing an apprenticeship said they could not find one in their preferred location.

The regional picture varies enormously. In the North East, colleges account for around 27 per cent of starts, compared to 11.7 per cent in the South East and 6.5 per cent in London. Adam Goldstein, until recently chair of Barnet and Southgate College, puts London’s low share down to the high concentration of ITPs there and the lack of very large employers in the market for apprenticeships.

But even in the North East, employers are becoming more cautious.

At Middlesbrough College, governors this year heard that SMEs, which dominate the Tees Valley economy, were struggling with “cost pressures and inconsistent demand – reducing opportunities” for apprentices.

AoC senior policy manager Claire Barker says colleges have seen increasing demand from young people, especially in construction and engineering apprenticeships, but are being blocked by “barriers” facing the employers they work with, including financial constraints and “the capacity to offer the right support in the workplace”.

Solihull College and University Centre CEO Rebecca Gater puts her college’s recent apprenticeships decline largely down to employer demand, with vacancies in the West Midlands being around one-third lower than the previous year.

Employers, she says, face “challenges around the investment of time and resources they need to put into an apprentice, and lack of understanding about how apprentices can benefit their businesses…and the paperwork a small employer has to do is quite significant”.

Apprenticeship growth since 2022-23 has been concentrated in business, digital and education apprenticeships rather than construction and engineering, despite the government’s repeated emphasis on technical and infrastructure skills.

An AoC survey found a third of colleges reporting a rise in starts in the first part 2025-26, with increased demand for construction, engineering, manufacturing, health, public services and care apprenticeships. But “limited” vacancies in construction, engineering and manufacturing have led to a rise in learners on full-time programmes instead.

Colleges are also confronting the pressure of rising NEET numbers, with many colleges expanding lower-level courses in response.

MidKent College’s apprenticeship numbers rose 29 per cent over the four years to 2024-25, but last year asked its electrical and plumbing apprenticeship provider JTL to leave its Maidstone campus to find space for around 500 young people on lower-level courses.

A spokesperson said the college needed to “support local efforts to reduce the NEET population here in Kent and Medway”.

Since 2020 colleges have sought to reduce their reliance on subcontracting, partly in response to policy changes. Strode College, now part of UCS College Group, attributed its 42 per cent fall in starts between 2020-21 and 2024-25 to “planned reduction in sub-contracted delivery”.

This table was updated to remove South Hampshire College Group because a merger meant published DfE figures did not provide a like-for-like comparison.

Reversing the decline

Ministers are trying to change the economics.

The government is fully funding apprenticeship training costs for 16 to 24-year-olds employed by non-levy-paying businesses and introducing a £2,000 hiring incentive.

Employers can also receive £3,000 for recruiting apprentices aged 18 to 24 on universal credit for over six months.

Colleges make up two-thirds of the 331 providers approved to deliver new apprenticeship units, offering shorter, more flexible training.

Foundation apprenticeships, launched last year for 16 to 21-year-olds needing additional help with employability, have also attracted strong college involvement. Of 117 providers offering them, 63 are colleges.

But take-up is slow, with just 160 starts recorded between August 2025 and April 2026, and AoC warns the £2,000 recruitment and progression incentive attached to them “may shift recruitment away from other apprenticeships without increasing apprenticeship numbers overall”.

For over a decade, ministers have urged colleges to deliver more apprenticeships without doing enough to remove the barriers holding them back: stagnant funding, shortages of specialist teachers, compliance risks, EPA bottlenecks, employer reluctance and the higher costs of supporting younger and more vulnerable apprentices.

Colleges must also maintain a broad local offer while competing with ITPs able to concentrate on the most commercially attractive parts of the market.

The question is therefore not whether colleges can stop ITPs ‘nicking their lunch’. It is whether the system gives them enough reason to do so.

The chancellor must raise apprenticeship funding bands

Ministers have set out what they want from manufacturing: more investment, more innovation, higher growth and a bigger industrial base across the country.

Manufacturers want the same. Our members can tell you which machines they would buy and which lines they would open.

The harder question is asked less often. Who is going to do the work?

Advanced facilities need engineers. New lines need technicians, welders, machinists, fabricators, controls programmers and maintenance staff. Reindustrialisation cannot be legislated into existence. It is delivered by trained people, and we are still not training enough of them.

Manufacturing produces £220 billion of output, supports 2.6 million jobs and accounts for 42 per cent of UK exports. Its average salary of £41,200 is 8 per cent above the national average. These are precisely the skilled regional jobs ministers want.

But the route into them is narrowing. Apprenticeships in engineering and manufacturing have fallen by around 40 per cent since the levy arrived in 2017. Engineering starts fell 25 per cent between 2017 and 2024, with level 2 – the entry point for school leavers – down by more than half.

There are currently roughly 48,000 live vacancies in manufacturing, while close to three-quarters of manufacturers say technical skills shortages are their biggest recruitment barrier.

Meanwhile, in the first three months of 2026, more than one million young people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training – 89,000 more than a year earlier. A record number of young people are outside work and study while employers cannot fill skilled vacancies. Those are not two separate problems. They are one problem, handled by two different parts of Whitehall.

An apprenticeship is the most direct connection between them. It pays from day one, carries no debt and ends in work the wider economy demonstrably needs. Visit almost any factory and you will meet plant directors, engineering managers and chief executives who started on the shop floor at 16 or 18. That is a ladder of opportunity, and it worked without anyone writing a strategy about it.

So what should the chancellor do in the autumn budget?

Start with funding bands, because they are doing the most damage. Many have never been uprated, while equipment, energy and instructor salaries have risen sharply. Where a band no longer covers training costs, the employer pays the difference – often several thousand pounds per apprentice – or the provider withdraws the standard altogether.

Make UK is asking the chancellor to raise the maximum band from £27,000 to £35,000 and prioritise advanced manufacturing occupations in the funding review. With 86 per cent of manufacturers expecting employment costs to rise again this year, asking employers to absorb a widening shortfall will produce fewer apprentices, not more.

Second, spend the money already collected. More than £1 billion raised from business for skills is not returned for training. Make UK estimates that ringfencing the growth and skills levy and immigration skills charge could fund around 234,000 additional starts. Employers find it hard to accept that a levy introduced to fund training depends on how much the Treasury snaffles away for other “priorities”.

Third, explore skills tax relief for employers who invest in training. Manufacturers receive tax support to invest in physical capital, but investment in people is not supported to the same degree. The Treasury should review existing relief on work-related training and consider how it could encourage investment in critical roles and skills.

Any relief must be laser-focused on technical training for critical roles.

None of this will hold together unless skills and industrial policy are written in the same room. An industrial strategy that names advanced manufacturing as a growth sector, alongside a funding system that makes its apprenticeships uneconomic to deliver, is not a strategy. It is two documents pointing in opposite directions.

There is a wider argument that outlasts any budget. For decades, we have described the technical route as the thing you do if university is not for you. Most young people do not go to university. They are not a residual category, and their route should not be treated as one.

The test for this Budget is not whether ministers restate their commitment to reindustrialisation. It is whether the system allows an employer in Harlow, Halifax or Hartlepool to take on an apprentice next September.

Build the rungs and the ladder of opportunity does the rest. Leave them out, and the ambition stays on paper while another cohort of young people is told to wait.

New ‘vocational GCSEs’ to replace KS4 technical awards

New nationally-set “vocational GCSEs” will be introduced in schools to replace existing technical awards, with league tables due to be adjusted to take account of them.

The new qualifications will sit alongside existing “traditional” GCSEs, with assessment for 16-year-olds “aligned to 16 to 19 progression routes including A Levels, T Levels and the new V Levels”.

Ministers have also announced a new “national mission” on work experience, which aims to create 200,000 placements.

Earlier in the summer, the government announced that it would create new “technical pathways” for 14 to 16-year-olds.

Education secretary Lucy Powell also suggested new GCSE-level technical qualifications may be needed as part of these pathways.

The vocational GCSEs will be rolled out as early as 2029 for some subjects, the government said, a year after technical pathways are due to be introduced.

Accountability measures will be adapted to recognise the new qualifications and give schools an incentive to offer them.

The government said local leaders, schools, colleges and employers will “play a key role in deciding the subjects to reflect skills needs”.

A consultation will be launched later in the year to shape what the qualifications will look like.

They will be developed alongside the ongoing review of existing GCSEs prompted by last year’s curriculum review, to create “complementary qualifications” and to avoid “duplication or unnecessary overlap”.

Subject options could include business management and finance, creative media production, digital tech, child development and building and construction, the DfE said.

‘Nationally-set’

The qualifications, which will be the same size as GCSEs, will have “nationally-set content, grading and assessment”, unlike existing technical awards.

The DfE said technical awards “currently vary by provider with no nationally set content, and do not consistently support progression to further study”.

Like existing GCSEs, assessment and grading for the new qualifications will be regulated by Ofqual. Subject content will be based on subject expert advice.

Technical awards were introduced in 2015 under the coalition government. They were designed as vocational qualifications “on par with GCSEs” that had to meet “tough new criteria on employer value”.

In 2024-25, 45 per cent of students in state-funded schools took at least one technical award.

Analysis by Schools Week found that around nine in ten mainstream schools in England offered them in that same academic year.

Not about ‘different routes’

Prime minister Andy Burnham said: “We’ve all heard someone say ‘school wasn’t really for me’ because they were not given the chance to study vocational courses as well as traditional subjects.

“That one-size-fits-all approach isn’t working, so we’re building an education system that values both academic and technical paths.”

Education secretary Lucy Powell said: “Our new Vocational GCSEs will give young people a stronger connection to the careers and industries shaping our economy, helping them discover and develop their talents while maintaining high standards across our education system.

“This is not about creating different routes for different children. It is about ensuring every child has access to a rich and ambitious education that opens doors, creates opportunity and prepares them for life beyond the classroom.”

‘Well-intentioned’

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of ASCL, said the reform was “well-intentioned”, but said the government needed to “ensure schools have the staffing and resources” to deliver the new qualifications.

Ministers should also campaign to raise public awareness of vocational and technical routes, he said.

“Without this wider action, revamping qualifications will simply mean more upheaval and workload for hard-pressed schools, without actually achieving the objective of boosting vocational and technical pathways.”

He also welcomed the plans to change performance measures, but that there needed to be “flexibility between vocational and technical pathways”.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, said: “If delivered in the right way, these GCSEs have the potential to increase awareness among parents and students of alternatives to more traditional academic routes, and boost the status and esteem in which vocational and technical options are held.”

He added that they should avoid the pitfalls of existing GCSEs, where content became “unwieldy” and where there was “over-reliance on final exams”.

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said: “Success is dependent on government providing sustained investment, resources, time and capacity for schools and teachers to develop and deliver high-quality vocational provision.

“These proposed changes will fall at the first hurdle unless there is sufficient investment in schools and the workforce.”

Meanwhile, David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “We are delighted to see this announcement in support of the Prime Minister’s promotion of young people having the opportunity to explore more vocational and technical options from 14.

“Whenever they are asked, young people say they want to learn relevant skills to help them see a route into work after school and college. This announcement should help to achieve that, resulting in more young people feeling engaged and motivated by education at a crucial stage in their lives.

“At the design stage, it will be crucial to work with the college sector to dovetail new KS4 qualifications with post-16 T levels, V Levels and occupational certificates to ensure they do help young people make a flying start at 16 when they be embark on their technical learning routes.

“Colleges are ideal partners for schools in delivering the new qualifications because they offer industry standard facilities, staff experience and links to employers which will mean the learning experience is authentically different to school and properly employment focused.

“The national mission on work experience should also embrace and bring into one place the promotion of post-16 work experience to employers to ensure that all young people on T Levels and other study programmes have access to high-quality work placements.”

200,000 work placements

The work experience mission will work alongside businesses, including the Good Business Forum, to boost work experience opportunities in schools.

Mayors and local authorities will help make links between schools and employers, which could include accountancy firms, digital media companies and construction companies.

Number 10 North, Burnham’s flagship northern headquarters, will also set up work experience placements for 14 to 16-year-olds this academic year.

From this month, schools have to ensure pupils get two weeks of work experience between year 7 and year 11.

FE Week on Location: And they’re off

FE Week on Location

Click below for episode one of our daily FE Week on Location series at WorldSkills Shanghai 2026

WorldSkills 2026: Day 1 round-up – Smells like Team spirit

Team UK have been riding the emotional highs of waving the flag in front of thousands of people at last night’s WorldSkills opening ceremony.

The team of 28 UK champions were up early on Wednesday morning to compete in their first day of competition in Shanghai.

But they were running on sub-optimal sleep after celebrating the stunning opening of the competition into the early hours of the morning.

Chemical laboratory technician Ruth Douglas, from Northern Ireland, said the parade through the arena was a “surreal experience” for her.

“I’m quite a reserved person, I’m not really into big events, but honestly I loved every second of it. The team spirit and being in that atmosphere and that environment was so amazing,” she said.

“It really boosted my confidence for the week ahead,” she added.

Wigan-based Sam Jones, the UK’s refrigeration & air conditioning competitor, said that the build-up to the event was a highlight for him.

“Getting ready, everyone was a bit jittery and nervous but when we walked up onto the stage it was like something you see on TV,” he beamed.

Both Jones and Douglas had short tasks today, meaning they had a relaxed afternoon to prepare for busier days ahead.

Jones’ first task on day one was installing and commissioning an air-to-water heat pump at his workstation, which is used to heat water in a house, a steer away from his usual air-to-air heat pump training.

“I suppose that is the way the trade is going, so it has been nice to train and practice on that and work on something new,” he said.

Going into the subsequent days, Jones added that he was in a “good and positive” mindset for tomorrow and “smash it again hopefully”.

Douglas was also a little out of her comfort zone today with her four-hour task using an auto-titrator, a piece of equipment that determines the concentration of a substance in a solution.

“I’m used to doing manual titration,” she said. “It was a challenge using that equipment and getting it to do what I wanted it to do.”

Luckily, Douglas had previously had a day-long one-to-one training with the manufacturer of the auto-titrator, so was familiar with the technology.

Robot systems spotlight

Jason Scott, a former competitor in robot systems integration at WorldSkills Lyon, was also in Shanghai supporting the team.

Robot systems integration is a fairly new skill, having just been launched at WorldSkills in 2022. Scott, along with his teammate Charlie Carson, won a medal for excellence in 2024 and has been training the duo on the side of his day job.

The competition involves setting up an industrial robot to be automated for use in factories.

(left to right) Claire Riddle from Pearson, Pratham Lohia, Peter Jenkins, Marion Plant chair of WorldSkills UK

Peter Jenkins and Pratham Lohia have been training together for the competition for just six months, but Scott, who has been their assistant trainer and even let them sofa surf, has all the confidence in the duo to do well.

Lohia is the software czar of this skill, setting up the programme, while Jenkins works in “the cell”, making sure the machinery is up to scratch to perform the programme once launched.

“After this morning, it was absolute panic, but now they’ll hit the flow state; they’ll hit the rhythm of this competition. That will be really required especially for tomorrow when the tasks get harder and harder,” Scott explained.

These systems have hundreds of applications, from an Amazon warehouse to a Tesla factory, and are used by countless corporate customers.

Tomorrow, Jenkins and Lohia will run their programme but will be thrown “curveballs” as the hypothetical customers become more demanding.

At the end of the competition, the team will have to document their programme and present to their peers and experts.

Scott said his words of wisdom to this year’s team were to make sure their presentation was concise and eloquent and to enjoy every second of the experience.

“This will be a lifelong memory that they will never forget.”

We’re losing the Saturday job and gaining a bigger problem

Britain’s NEET rate looks better than it did twenty years ago. That should be reassuring. It isn’t.

In late 2005, around a million 16-24-year-olds were not in education, employment or training, a rate of 14.4 per cent. By late 2025 the count was slightly smaller and the rate had fallen to 12.8 per cent. But roughly six in ten of that group had never held a paid job, against four in ten twenty years earlier: some 155,000 more young people with no work history at all. The problem has not widened. It has deepened.

Something specific has disappeared. Young people employed outside full-time education fell from about 48 per cent of the age group in 2001 to 38 per cent in 2025. The Saturday job, the holiday shift, the weekend work alongside college: this was how a work history was built before one was needed. A young person who becomes NEET today arrives with nothing to show an employer.

That changes the diagnosis. Policy has focused on skills, work experience and making young people “job ready”. But does Britain lack employable young people, or employers willing and able to employ them?

The youth labour market is a market, and employability programmes add candidates to one side without adding vacancies to the other. A town with 100 openings and 130 credible applicants does not improve when a programme produces 50 more job-ready candidates. Some find work; others take jobs that would have gone to other young people, and the programme records the same outcomes either way.

Demand has weakened. Vacancies have been falling while employers have absorbed sharp increases in the cost of hiring: higher employer National Insurance, substantially higher minimum wages, stronger employment rights, each with strong arguments behind it.

But young workers are concentrated in labour-intensive sectors, where hiring is decided at the margin. The question is not whether an experienced worker is worth the minimum wage, but whether an inexperienced applicant, whose productivity is uncertain, is worth the risk.

Employer-side measures are different in kind: the government’s youth jobs grant and the jobs guarantee both make saying yes to an inexperienced applicant cheaper. But subsidies leak, through deadweight, paying for a hire that would have happened anyway, and displacement, a subsidised recruit filling a post another young person would have taken.

Kickstart delivered more than 160,000 placements, and its evaluation suggests roughly eleven additional young people in unsubsidised work two years later for every hundred who took part. Jobs supported and jobs created are not the same number.

Design decides how much leaks, and the largest example is hiding in plain sight. Employer National Insurance relief for under-21s is deadweight by construction: it is given for age, not for a hire that would not otherwise have been made, and it expires at 21, before many young people and most graduates make their first substantive entry. An employer weighing up someone who has never worked receives nothing. The disadvantage that matters is inexperience, not age.

That is the argument we put to HM Treasury this month in our Budget representation: redesign the under-21 relief as relief on the first 12 to 24 qualifying months of substantive employment for anyone under 25, so the incentive lands at the transition into work rather than on a birthday.

We also propose an interest-free apprentice employment advance of £5,000 to £7,500 for SMEs creating an additional apprenticeship, repaid where the recruitment succeeds, and a short, funded unit for that apprentice’s supervisor – because what often stands between an inexperienced applicant and a job offer is not cost but the capacity to bring someone on. None of it needs new delivery machinery.

One caveat applies throughout. Most young people who are NEET today are inactive rather than unemployed, and a growing share report health conditions. Neither more vacancies nor a wage subsidy will reach them: what they need first is a supported experience of work.

The strongest interventions combine both sides: a real employer, a real job and structured learning that raises productivity while the young person earns. That is a good apprenticeship, which is why the fall of more than 40 per cent in apprenticeship starts for 16–18-year-olds over the past decade is such a costly own goal.

Three things follow for government: stop subsidising youth as a category and start incentivising the transition into work; judge programmes against counterfactual outcomes rather than placement counts, publishing evaluations before schemes are closed and reporting how many previously NEET young people are still in work at 24 months; and protect entry-level apprenticeship starts.

Employers, including our own members, control those roles in short supply: the Saturday job, the holiday shift, the T Level placement, the entry-level apprenticeship.

The question is no longer only how Britain makes young people ready for work. It is how employers are made ready to offer it. The Budget is where that work can start.

New ‘class unit’ must decide what problem it’s trying to solve

Despite its slightly sinister name, the government’s decision to establish a “class unit” within the Office for Equal Opportunities to “drive forward government work to improve life chances” and to abolish the Social Mobility Commission will undoubtedly have supporters. But it is not clear who the class unit is going to help, largely because it has an unresolved problem of purpose.

So far, it has been described in terms of class; the white working class, low-income groups and the disadvantaged. This is muddled. Those categories can only be treated as interchangeable if we assume class background is a fixed identity that is easily defined and closely aligned with income and disadvantage. It is not.

Class is very messy. It still matters in shaping identities. The Social Mobility Commission’s research found that 54 per cent of people say they are working class and 65 per cent say their family was. Yet what they mean by this varies enormously. Some define their class in terms of parents, others include grandparents. Many keep the identity even when their occupation and income suggest otherwise.

Consumption, culture and lifestyle are all influential in shaping perceptions of class. But so is social mobility. There have been huge changes in Britain’s occupational structure, particularly upwards. In 1971, 25 per cent of the male workforce were in professional jobs and 45 per cent in technical or routine occupations (working class). Today, these figures are almost completely reversed.

Fewer people are working class and fewer come from working class backgrounds – despite what they say. Alongside this is a smaller but significant group who have experienced downward mobility. Once they are added in, most people (two thirds) are in a different social class from their parents. And this pattern has remained remarkably stable for decades.

This raises an obvious policy question. Should interventions focus on class origins, even though many people from working-class backgrounds are progressing successfully without special assistance? Or should policy focus on those most likely to experience poor outcomes, regardless of where they started?

Low income is in some ways a simpler focus than class, and it is misleading to conflate the two. Every FE college knows there are occupations commonly perceived as working class that earn significantly more than many graduate professions. Train drivers, electricians and plumbers often earn more than primary school teachers, social workers and journalists. It would be contradictory for government to champion technical education while simultaneously implying that working-class status, low income and disadvantage are synonymous.

If ministers wish to focus on low-income households, they should just say that. There is a case for concentrating on persistent low income, which is different to being poor temporarily. The Commission is aiming to publish research which shows how “sticky” the welfare system really is. But even this is not the full story. Income alone cannot explain outcomes.

Many children from low-income families do extremely well. Chinese pupils on free school meals are an outstanding example. Outcomes between low income families differ. Those in London generally perform better than those living elsewhere. And it is difficult to correlate improved income with better outcomes, as the evidence from projects such as Baby’s First Years shows.

All of this points to the need for a much clearer definition of what we mean by disadvantage. If it is not synonymous with class or income, what does it mean? And how do we remedy it? The class unit will need to grapple with these complexities if it is to develop policies that genuinely expand opportunity.

The recent Independent Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes illustrates the challenge. Despite its title, the report does not actually analyse “white working-class” outcomes because it struggled with definitions and data limitations. So it used free school meal eligibility as a proxy for low income and analysed achievement gaps on this basis.

The report’s claim to be examining class rests largely on qualitative research into attitudes and experiences. From this, it concludes that the education system is not designed to serve white working-class children and families effectively. This conclusion sheds more heat than light on the problem, and the methodology highlights the dangers of clumsy class analysis.

Participants are divided into broad A/B and CDE groups, categories commonly used in market research. This produces average differences between the groups but obscures variation within them. It assumes that skilled, high earning “Cs” hold the same views and values as “Ds” and “Es”. There are likely to be differences and they may be important. Not all children in CDE households perform poorly. Why do some succeed while others struggle?

The report itself offers clues. It shows that too many children across all backgrounds spend too little time reading, but the problem is most pronounced among white children in the CDE categories. Reading is crucial to cognitive development, emotional, educational and later lifetime outcomes.

Understanding why some families foster strong reading habits while others do not would give policymakers a far more practical route to improving opportunities than broad claims about the class character of the education system.

English resits are treating the symptom, not the cause

Decades of data show GCSE English resit pass rates languishing at historic lows – hovering under 20 per cent overall, and barely 10 per cent for 18- and 19-year-olds. If Ofsted inspected the Department for Education on this dismal record, it would be a severe finger-wagging moment. Yet successive policy interventions have done nothing to alter the downward trajectory.

Why? Because sector leaders and policymakers have consistently tried to address the symptoms of under-performance rather than root causes. As with any quality-improvement journey, the golden rule remains: you can never fix under-performance by treating the symptom. You can only fix the root-cause issue. But what is it?

During an inspection, I once observed a level 2 beauty therapy class. Resplendent in their uniforms, the students arrived early, took great pride in managing their learning challenges with minimal instruction. They loved what they were doing.

An hour later, my next observation was a GCSE English resits class. Sitting in that room were those exact same beauty therapy students. Their behaviour was appalling, exhibiting complete disrespect for a hard-working teacher. They hated English. They endured it, and coped only by humiliating the teacher to avoid studying.

They simply did not see the need or relevance of what they were being taught.

This is not the fault of the students, nor is it the fault of dedicated English teachers. It lies squarely with the individual vocational curriculum designers. We cannot expect resit teachers to magically reverse years of ingrained failure in a couple of hours a week. With pass rates sitting at 19.8 per cent, the data proves they cannot.

To understand the real issue, look closely at Ofqual’s nine assessment objectives for GCSE English language. They are fabulous. They set out the expert, independent learning skills needed to succeed in any subject: reading critically, writing for a specific audience, structuring thoughts, evaluating evidence, listening, and presenting ideas. In fact, if you stripped away the subject title, those nine outcomes form a perfect blueprint for a level 3 course in expert learning skills. They are precisely what every employer and vocational teacher wants.

‘To make this really explicit, I’ve created a mapping from ‘the GCSE nine’ (and the Functional Skills 28) to the 18 essential expert learning skills we all want our students to develop.

Now run a quick thought experiment: imagine asking your vocational teaching staff if they know what these nine objectives actually are. In my workshops across further education, the answer is almost universally no.

After nearly 40 years in FE and skills, I have become convinced that students’ poor attitude towards English is the most significant root-cause issue to address. An issue that, sadly, begins much, much earlier in school life.

Before Covid, I spent Friday mornings sitting on tiny chairs in my local first school’s reception class, researching an early reading scheme I was writing.

One day the teacher said she would include Lucy for extra support. Lucy had been on book nine for three weeks and was struggling.

Think about that four-year-old. She can’t do it, but for three weeks she has been forced to reopen the same book again and again. She squirms, looks around and searches for distraction. Eventually, through repetition, she memorises the story and appears to read it. Then she moves to the even harder book 10…

Now wind back to the first book in the Oxford Reading Tree scheme. In the first weeks of reception, children often begin by learning to read the sounds s, a, t and p. So what do you think are the first words in book 1?

“Oh, Floppy!”

Incredible. We teach a skill, then give children material that bears no relation to that skill. Is it any wonder that Lucy, and perhaps a quarter of her class, begin to hate reading?

So what should FE do?

Every vocational teacher should proactively include at least one learning outcome from ‘the nine’ in every lesson. Make the development of these skills explicit. Show students that these are not “English skills”; they are the expert learning skills they need for work, life and whatever technology comes next.

And finally, here’s thought experiment number two: what do you think would happen to GCSE English resit rates if every vocational teacher proactively develops every learners’ ability to understand, use and master the nine expert learning skills (GCSE English outcomes) in all of their lessons?

This isn’t about GCSE English. Every quality improvement initiative requires the staff involved to make an investment: in this instance, it’s the time needed to redesign their scheme of work.

But for an improvement initiative to actually work, there has to be a pay-off for the ones making the investment. And the pay-off for vocational teachers is students who will find it much easier to learn in class and and learn through the production of their course work, leading to more commitment in lessons and easier marking workloads. It will allow teachers to enjoy their vocation again.

And by the way, the primary aim of my reading scheme is not to teach children to read, but to teach them to love reading. It’s my attempt to resolve this ultimate root-cause issue.