75% firms expect increase of high-skilled roles in coming years

“UUK is right to highlight the growing need for higher level education, training, and skills, as well as the importance of lifelong learning. CBI research has found that three quarters of businesses expect to increase the number of high-skilled roles over the coming years, and many have concerns about skills shortages.

“Better information and careers guidance for people – alongside greater numbers of flexible learning opportunities – is vital to help people choose the best route for them to higher level skills, whether that’s at a university, college, or learning on the job through a degree apprenticeship.”

Alistair Jarvis, Chief Executive of Universities UK, said there is significant evidence of the need to increase student numbers:

“There is rising employer demand for the broad skills developed at university across a wide range of subjects and levels. The UK economy and society needs more graduates. Educating more people of all ages at university would grow our economy faster, by increasing productivity, competitiveness, and innovation.

“The analytical and learning skills developed at university help people adapt in the rapidly changing jobs market. To meet future challenges, the government should develop new policies to make part-time study more appealing, upskilling easier and encourage lifelong learning among our ageing population.”

Edwin Morgan, Director of Policy at the Institute of Directors, said:

“Not being able to find people with the right skills consistently comes up as a top issue affecting our members, so universities have a crucial role to play in filling this gap. Higher education has been one of the UK’s most successful sectors in recent years, accounting for a sizeable chunk of UK exports, and further expansion will be necessary as the demand for highly-skilled labour grows.  

“This report rightly looks at the broader context of the changing nature of work, in particular how jobs will be changed by technological trends such as automation and artificial intelligence. Rather than focussing solely on the inevitable disruption, educators and businesses together must work out how to seize the benefits of change, while making sure people are able to adapt to new ways of working.

“A significant factor in the UK’s low productivity growth is that firms aren’t able to fully adopt and embed new technologies in their business-models. In many cases this is because they lack the required skills. The government must therefore view education as an integral part of its industrial strategy.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said:

We want all young people to go as far as their talents take them, and are pleased to see that disadvantaged 18 year olds are 50% were more likely to enter full-time university in 2017 compared with 2009.

From next year, universities are working with the Office for Students – backed by £860m funding – to improve wider access for all students. We’ve also increased the maximum grants and loans by over 3% for the 2018/19 academic year, and disadvantaged students starting their courses this year will have access to the largest ever amounts of cash-in-hand support for their living costs.

As part of our reforms to higher education, we are making it easier for anyone to access university and we have taken a number of steps to support full-time and part-time students. We now offer maintenance loans to part time students, and we have raised the repayment threshold on student loans to £25,000, to put more money in graduates’ pockets. Our independent review of Post 18 Education will also look at how we can further increase opportunities for people of all backgrounds.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will increase the complexity of work, and the relentless, rapid pace of change will create even stronger demand for those with transferable skills developed at university across all subjects, in areas such as communication, team-working and problem-solving. Although graduates earn significantly more than non-graduates, earning on average an extra £10,000 each year, and are more likely to be in employment than non-graduates, nearly 50% of the subject knowledge acquired during the first year of a four-year technical degree is outdated by the time students graduate.

The percentage of young people from England entering higher education has reached 49 percent, although there has been a steady decline in part-time and mature study numbers in recent years. Universities provide many professional and technical qualifications, estimated at around 41% of overall provision, while the total number of part-time students in higher and further education and with alternative providers has fallen from 539,645 in 2013/14 to 476,910 in 2016/17. The report calls on policy makers to reverse this drop and incentivise closer links between universities and employers, particularly small and medium sized businesses.

65% of children entering primary schools today will ultimately work in new jobs and functions that don’t currently exist. Employers have told CBI that they expect the greatest demand for skills over the next three to five years will be for people with higher level skills where there is already a much higher employment rate. The report reveals that, in 2016, 440,000 new professional jobs were created, yet there were only 316,690 first-degree UK-based graduates, leaving a recruitment gap of 123,310, more than double the gap in 2015. By 2030, it is estimated that there will be a UK talent deficit of between 600,000 to1.2 million workers for both our financial and business sector, and technology, media and telecommunications sector. 

Future demand will also require a spread and combinations of subjects, with broad-based knowledge areas such as English language, history, philosophy, administration and management associated strongly with occupations projected to see a rise in workforce share. 

A new Commission on Workers and Technology chaired by Yvette Cooper MP was also launched today, with the publication of new evidence on British workers‘ hopes and fears for automation over the next decade.