What to Expect from Skills England
On June 1st 2025, the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education (IfATE) was officially abolished and replaced with Skills England.
The new Labour government has a plan to reinvent the skills system in their tenure, with a real focus on youth employment.
The first on the cutting room floor IfATE. In place since 2017 it has been responsible for creation and quality of apprenticeship standards being delivered.
The initial understanding is that Skills England will take a more broader approach to strategic skills growth, and importantly have greater governmental leadership where IfATE was independent.
Future of Skills Strategy
Labour have laid out a few of their priorities, and already set out some of their goals and even implanted some change.
Two key areas of focus are youth employment and skills. Both of which have been supported by recent changes to apprenticeship lengths and levels.
In the future we will see changes to what the apprenticeship levy can be spent on, and the introduction of more short skills courses to upskill the nation and fix skills gaps. Well that’s the plan.
Data Driven Assessments
The first action taken by the government is to create data-driven skills assessments of key sectors.
The following areas have detailed reports on the skills need and areas to improve:
- Defence
- Advanced Manufactruing
- Clean Energy
- Construction
- Creative
- Digital
- Financial
- Healthcare
- Life Sciences
- Professional Services
To view them in detail, check out the following link
Full Industry Skills Assessments
It is a great sign to see real data going into decision making, and it’s a great start to ensure the strategy is effective in reaching their goals with limited waste in time and money.
Key Findings
In their initial research, the government have released their three top key findings.
- Apprenticeship Development is too slow. Does not react quick enough to changing industries & demand.
- Apprenticeship delivery is too restrictive, needs to be more adaptable.
- Access to apprenticeships is cumbersome for SMEs
Three points I’m sure didn’t need a huge amount of searching to find out, but great to hear it noted nonetheless.
In response to that, they have summarised their strategy with four main areas to work on:
- Improve the adaptability of skills training
- Develop ‘bolt on’ training courses in key skills areas
- Continue thriving programmes such as skills bootcamps.
- Reduce the admin burden for apprenticeships.
What does that mean?
In short, it’s the start of some wholesale change within the apprenticeship & skills systems, which will take a few years to be realised.
We can expect the levy to be relaxed to allow for more skills training mapped to needs within industry, alongside the hope that Skills England makes skills as a whole, more adaptable to change.
It seems that reactivity and pace are key throughout the report which is a promising sign.
One key takeaway for me is the reduction in the admin burden facing SMEs taking on apprentices. A huge issue across the board, preventing smaller organisations from getting involved with the system, so it going to be met with arms wide open partially from those in the provider space battling to “sell” the benefits of apprenticeships to their local business ecosystem.
In summary, a promising start from Skills England, using data & insights to inform their choices whilst being very transparent. A lot of questions will be raised as expected, but in time they will be answered in one form or another.
Watch this space.
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