Students, sectors and skills-sets: a six-point plan for a modern Industrial Strategy 

Careers and skills education lie at the heart of Industrial Strategy success. We represent The Careers & Enterprise Company’s Employer Advisory Group (EAG)a 25-strong business coalition across all priority sectors and founded on a core belief that early, meaningful, and inclusive employer engagement with young people is essential to building the skilled and motivated workforce our future economy needs. 

This week, we met Business Minister, Blair McDougall, to share our six-point plan for putting young people at the forefront of a modern skills-led industrial strategy. 

Early engagement should be a cornerstone of all business outreach – and be an unashamedly long-term investment of an ambitious Industrial Strategy. Employers do this because the business case is compelling and supports a long term approach to workforce planning. Engaging young people earlier improves talent pipelines: 77% say their work in schools and colleges is encouraging young people to take up careers in their sector. Down the line business report more job applications as well as reduced recruitment costs.  

Primary education outreach brings opportunity to spark curiosity and make jobs feel tangible and possible. It also arrests damaging stereotypes that ingrain bias and lock young people out of sectors and roles. KPMG’s “Opening Doors to Opportunities” programme is designed to help learners develop the foundational skills in literacy and numeracy, as well as essential skills needed for the workplace.  

The Government's vision for reinvigorating work experience for all students offers a unique opportunity to align classroom learning to the world of work. Changing expectations about how young people see work, shaped by different life experiences and business practice, means that many want flexibility, purpose, and the chance to learn by doing, rather than following traditional paths. 

Modern work experience must break away from the traditional ‘two-week block’ experience that for too long has been too inflexible for many students and employers. Flexibility can’t equate to making tea or doing the photocopying; these early engagements with the world of work are fundamental in offering real-world insight, breadth and depth to the ranges of roles in a sector or workplace, skills development and equity. Flannery Plant Hire use work experience as an escalator into skills bootcamps and paid employment for young people who often feel furthest away from opportunity.  

A dynamic Industrial Strategy conjoins national intention with local delivery. Locality matters but sectors are all-pervasive and not confined to one place. Businesses rely on national consistency to provide an efficient entry point into the skills system. Fragmentation creates variability, where quality and accountability go unchecked.  

Strong regional leadership is essential to alignment with local skills strategies. Careers Hubs combine central and local join up, providing a standardised focal point for employers to engage schools and colleges with purpose and at scale. To explore untapped economic potential, Careers Hubs and their well-established network of employers should be baked into all sector Job and Skills Plans, as seen in the Clean Energy Sector Plan, to ensure employers of all sizes can engage easily and consistently, helping to remove the redtape that prohibits small and micro business from benefitting and creating a simplified skills system accessible to employers of all sizes 

SMEs are integral to the skills system. They represent 60% of UK private sector jobs and can play a crucial role in opening young people’s eyes to real workplaces. Chances are, young people will work for themselves or a small firm at some point in their working life.  

For these businesses, capacity constraints and a need for more flexibility often limit and prohibit outreach. A test of success for roll out of Government’s work experience guarantee will be accessibility for SMEs to play their part. The creative industries comprise predominantly SMEs and microbusinesses and are a leading example of collective agency to raise awareness of the plethora of creative careers. Cisco and Hewett recruitment have shown how we can also unlock SME engagement through corporate supply chains and as an extension of sector wide approaches to work experience, by removing some of the logistical burdens felt most by small and micro business.  

The public sector’s annual £350 billion procurement spend could secure better outcomes on job opportunities and skills. The Industrial Strategy rightly signals intent to reform public procurement to strengthen locus on social value criteria in bids to stimulate local and diverse talent pipelines. 

Construction and healthcare are steadfast examples of sectors where social value has had positive effect on training and employment. Data shows that the quality of employer outreach in these sectors is among the best compared with other industries and results in higher levels of career interest from young people. Reform of work experience, as trailed in updated statutory guidance offers a tangible and measurable mechanism to embed within public purchasing as a strategic tool that supports business needs, social mobility, and regional economic ambitions. 

A growth economy should offer fair access for all young people to participate and excel in the workplace. The spectre of one million NEETs tells us that more collective action is urgently needed to make inclusive outreach a standard expectation across all skills strategies. 

Employers are at the forefront of an improving picture on careers education in England, including in their outreach to learners with special educational needs. 

Passport to Hospitality Worcestershire brilliantly provides SEND learners with industry experience alongside entry-level qualification. But we must do more to extend careers outreach to intake opportunity including work experience, internships and employment by unlocking capacity including through SME engagement. More widely, disadvantaged students need more help to improve their work readiness. Working-class girls can struggle with confidence in speaking about their skills in interviews and lag other cohorts in their understanding of recruitment processes. The imperative must be to create balance between sustained growth and opportunity for everyone, everywhere. 

A strong Industrial Strategy is a careers and skills strategy. Our EAG’s goal is to work with education, government and all regional and sector partners to make that happen. We thank the Minister for his time as we work on this joint mission.