Minding the Gap: Skills, Apprenticeships and the Region's Future

As the North East pins its hopes on a wave of new industries, from electric vehicles and offshore wind to film and life sciences, a crucial question hangs over its ambitions: will there be enough skilled workers to fill the jobs. A widening skills gap, and a decline in the apprenticeships that help to close it, pose a real challenge to the region's future.

A Widening Gap.

The skills gap is a significant and growing problem across the country. There are hundreds of thousands of vacancies that employers struggle to fill because applicants lack the required skills, and a large share of employers report difficulty finding the skilled workers they need.

This gap is more than an inconvenience, posing a direct threat to productivity, growth and the ability of businesses to expand. For a region seeking to grow new industries, the availability of skilled workers is critical.

The Apprenticeship Challenge.

Apprenticeships, which combine work and training, are one of the most important ways of developing the skilled workers the economy needs. Yet in many areas, the number of people starting apprenticeships has been falling, even as the demand for skills has grown.

In some crucial trades, the gap between the demand for workers and the number of apprentices being trained is stark, with many jobs available for every apprentice who completes their training. This shortfall in training risks leaving the economy short of the skills it needs.

The Sectors Crying Out.

Some sectors are feeling the shortage particularly acutely. Construction, engineering, and the green energy industries are all crying out for skilled workers, with shortages in trades such as carpentry, bricklaying and electrical work especially severe.

These are precisely the skills that the region's emerging industries depend on. Building electric vehicles, erecting wind turbines, constructing studios and laboratories, and decarbonising industry all require skilled workers, and a shortage of them could hold the region's ambitions back.

A Northern Divide.

The skills challenge has a regional dimension, with the gap between the North and the rest of the country a long-standing concern. The North has tended to have a lower share of people with higher qualifications, and the way training has been funded has tended to favour London and the South East.

For the North East, this means the skills challenge is felt particularly keenly, with the risk that a shortage of skills could compound the region's other economic disadvantages. Closing the skills gap is therefore central to closing the wider economic gap.

Why It Matters for the Boom.

The skills challenge is especially significant given the wave of investment coming to the region. The new industries that promise to transform the regional economy, from electric vehicles and offshore wind to film and life sciences, will only deliver their full benefits if local people have the skills to fill the jobs they create.

If the region cannot supply the skilled workers these industries need, the jobs and the benefits could flow elsewhere, or the investment could be deterred altogether. Ensuring that local people can access the new opportunities is therefore vital.

The Policy Response.

Recognising the challenge, there have been efforts to reform the system for funding skills and apprenticeships. A new approach is being introduced that aims to give employers more flexibility in how they use their training funding, alongside new types of apprenticeship and other measures intended to boost training.

Devolution, too, offers an opportunity, giving the region more control over adult skills funding and the chance to tailor training to local needs and industries. Aligning skills training with the needs of the region's emerging industries is a key goal.

A Shared Effort.

Closing the skills gap will require a shared effort across employers, training providers, schools, colleges and government. Employers have a role in offering apprenticeships and training, while the education system must inspire young people to pursue the careers the region needs, including in trades that have sometimes struggled to attract recruits.

Changing perceptions of these careers, and showing young people the opportunities they offer, is an important part of the challenge. The region's future workforce is being shaped by the choices made today.

Skilling Up.

The skills gap, and the decline in apprenticeships, pose a real challenge to the North East's ambitions, threatening to leave the region short of the skilled workers its emerging industries need. Closing the gap is essential if the region is to realise the full benefits of the investment coming its way.

With reforms to the skills system, the opportunities of devolution, and a shared effort across the region, there is a real chance to meet the challenge. Ensuring that local people can access the jobs of the future, by giving them the skills they need, is one of the most important tasks facing the region.

Investing in People.

At the heart of the skills challenge lies a simple truth: that the most valuable asset any region has is its people, and that investing in their skills and potential is the surest foundation for lasting prosperity. The North East has a long and proud tradition of skilled work, from the engineering and shipbuilding of its industrial heyday to the advanced manufacturing of today, and the region's people have always been its greatest strength.

Realising that potential, in a changing economy, depends on ensuring that people have the opportunity to develop the skills that the modern economy demands, throughout their lives and not just at its start. Apprenticeships have a vital role to play in this, offering a route into skilled employment that combines learning with earning, and providing a path to good careers that does not depend on a university education.

For young people in particular, apprenticeships can open doors to rewarding careers in the industries that are shaping the region's future, while for employers they offer a way to develop the skilled workforce they need. But the value of skills training extends throughout people's working lives, as the economy changes and new skills are required, making opportunities to retrain and upskill increasingly important.

For a region with significant levels of economic inactivity and a long-standing skills gap, investing in people's skills is not just an economic necessity but a matter of opportunity and fairness, helping people to access good jobs and to share in the region's growth. The wave of investment coming to the region offers a real opportunity to do this, creating jobs that local people can fill if they have the skills.

Ensuring that they do, by investing in skills and apprenticeships, is one of the most important things the region can do for its future.

We want to hear from you.

A widening skills gap and falling apprenticeship numbers threaten the region's ability to fill the jobs created by its new industries.

What would encourage more young people into skilled trades and apprenticeships?