Why 90 per cent of workers will need to acquire new skills over the next decade - Beckie Hart

.The pandemic has forced companies to employ new methods, evolve fresh products and services, and seek innovative routes to market, simply to survive.

Workers have been expected to keep up – but it hasn’t been easy.

The events of 2020 may have accelerated the process rather dramatically, but business was already evolving through digitisation and automation; there will be no going back now.

For workers across our region, like those in the rest of the country, that means there will be challenges ahead.

Whether they have been operating in roles which have adapted to the challenges of the pandemic, or sadly seen their jobs lost to its effects, workers are likely to share a common future: a need to reskill in the years ahead.

You may have seen this week a new CBI report – Learning For Life, published using analysis by McKinsey & Company – which reveals nine out of every 10 people across the UK will have to reskill over the coming decade. Millions will need new skills in digital, science, technology, engineering and maths, plus leadership and interpersonal skills.

Such a huge level of upskilling will be a mammoth undertaking – costed at an additional £13billion a year – which needs full commitment from business, Government and academia.

But where do we start? Only last month, business welcomed the Prime Minister’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee and flexible loans to support bitesize learning.

And while these are laudable first steps, there is a need to go further and faster. CBI research carried out prior to the pandemic reveals the nation faces a stark choice: invest more in lifetime learning and upskilling, or risk high, long-term unemployment and skills shortages.

Action is needed now. Employers, already the biggest investors in adult training, have a clear role to play. But structural barriers prevent them from investing more.

Training spend per employee declined by 5.6pc between 2011 and 2017 and is continuing to fall. A shift in gears is key to drive higher business investment in retraining over the next decade.

SMEs in particular face specific barriers to boosting their investment. These include a lack of resource and scale.

Meanwhile, businesses which pay the Apprenticeship Levy find the system ringfences their training budgets to only fund apprenticeships – leaving most companies with funds they can’t spend and skills gaps they can’t invest in.

The Government must replace the Apprenticeship Levy with a Flexible Skills and Training Levy and a training tax credit for SMEs to help every business to invest more.

The training landscape as it stands must also be refreshed. Right now, it is heavily geared towards longer, formal courses for young people. Ensuring the new flexible loans entitlement is inclusive of adults of all ages and accessible for bitesize courses is crucial to incentivise more people to take up adult education opportunities.

Encouraging more adults to take up lifelong learning is essential too: 68pc of employees in roles likely to evolve or disappear in the next decade due to automation are unaware this is the case.

They lack the advice and guidance they need. Turning ‘Job Centres’ into ‘Jobs and Skills Hubs’ which offer face-to-face learning support would help to tackle this and refocus vulnerable workers on a viable future.

Right now, the UK has a unique opportunity to level up opportunity across the country through reskilling.

Business, government, the education sector and individuals must come together to make Yorkshire and the Humber’s adult education system fit for the future. Getting this right matters hugely for the next generation.

By Beckie Hart - Regional Director, Yorkshire and the Humber, CBI

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