Skills England

Skills England is a new body that was launched in July 2024. It will take on the functions of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE), while also having an expanded remit to look at skills gaps and demand. Skills England will also identify the training that is accessible via the Growth and Skills Levy.

Background to Skills England

Skills England was established on 22 July 2024 in shadow form within the Department for Education, and will be fully established in phases over the next 9 to 12 months.

In the King’s Speech, the government set out its intention to bring forward legislation that will transfer functions from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) to Skills England. The government has said that the Skills England Bill will be introduced “as soon as Parliamentary time allows”.

Richard Pennycook has been appointed as the interim chair of Skills England, and the process for appointing Board members has begun.

Skills is a devolved policy area, and therefore the remit of Skills England will only cover England, and not the rest of the UK. However, Skills England will assess skills needs across the whole of the UK.

Aims of Skills England

Skills England will take over the functions that are currently carried out by IfATE. These functions include:

• Working with employers to develop, approve and review occupational standards. These are used in the development of apprenticeships, T Levels and other IfATE-approved technical qualifications.
• Create and maintain occupational maps which group together occupations into 15 routes.
• Responsibility for the technical qualification of a T Level, which is the main, classroom based element of the T Level. IfATE approve the outline content that is put together for each T level by a T Level panel.
• Approve, review and ensure quality of approved technical qualifications, and their alignment with the occupational standards.
• Development, review and approve apprenticeship standards.

However, Skills England will have a wider remit than IfATE. It will work to identify where skills gaps exist, and work with the Industrial Strategy Council and the Migration Advisory Committee to address these.

It will also identify the training that is accessible via the Growth and Skills Levy.

Growth and Skills Levy

The government intends to introduce a Growth and Skills Levy to replace the Apprenticeship Levy.

The new Growth and Skills Levy will allow employers to access a wider range of training with their funding. Under the apprenticeship levy, employers are only able to spend their apprenticeship levy funding on apprenticeship training and assessment costs. Skills England will determine which training will be eligible for the expanded levy. It will do this by assessing skills needs and demands, and through engagement with partners in the skills system.

The Library briefing Apprenticeships policy in England provides a full description of the apprenticeship levy, including the impact it has had on apprenticeship starts and the concerns that have been raised in relation to the levy.

Skills England outputs

As of the end September 2024, Skills England has published two products.

In September 2024 it published a report Driving growth and widening opportunities which provides a detailed explanation of the role of Skills England and Skills England’s initial assessment of the UK’s skills needs.

The report also outlines what Skills England will be doing over coming months. They will work with stakeholders to “test and refine” their initial assessment of the UK’s skills needs, and consult employers and other key organisations to get their views on the training that should be accessible through the Growth and Skills Levy.

Skills England also published an occupations in demand index in September, which ranks the demand for each occupation across the UK labour market based on various indicators. Occupations were put into one of the following categories: in critical demand, in elevated demand, or not in high demand.

In April 2023 to March 2024, 7.8% of the UK workforce were found to be in critical demand occupations, while a further 38.5% were in elevated demand occupations.