The results of the June general election have brought a new government into office, and with it, a fresh wave of policy proposals and institutional change. One of the most significant areas of focus is the field of skills and employment. As new ministers settle into their roles and departments realign, organisations across the UK are now seeking clarity about how the government’s intentions will translate into practical shifts in policy and funding. For many, the most pressing questions surround the Skills England initiative—a central plank of the government’s plan to restructure and revitalise the national skills system.
Skills England is positioned as both a reformative step and a long-term strategic solution. With the Labour government taking a decisive approach toward streamlining the skills system, this new body promises to bridge the longstanding gap between employers, education providers, and policy stakeholders. The early signals suggest that Skills England could fundamentally reshape how skills are developed, delivered, and matched to labour market needs over the coming decade. However, despite the positive rhetoric, a level of uncertainty remains, particularly about timelines, execution, and how this reform will affect the various actors currently engaged in the skills landscape.
What is Skills England?
Skills England is a newly announced national skills body, conceived by the government as a centralised organisation that will bring coherence to what has long been a fragmented and often inefficient system of vocational and technical education. Over the next nine to twelve months, this organisation is set to take shape, gradually absorbing many of the existing functions currently carried out by other institutions such as the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. This structural shift is designed to streamline responsibilities and enable a more unified approach to post-16 education policy and funding.
Unlike previous reforms, which often operated in silos or lacked sufficient strategic alignment, Skills England is expected to function as a nexus of coordination across multiple sectors. It aims to integrate the efforts of central and local government, business leaders, education and training providers, and trade unions into a single, coherent strategy. In effect, it promises to create a platform for collaboration that is better suited to identifying and meeting long-term skill requirements in a rapidly evolving economic and technological environment.
Strategically, the body will take on the role of overseeing the post-16 skills system to align educational pathways with the Industrial Strategy. This alignment is crucial, as it ensures that policy decisions about education and skills are directly connected to the wider economic goals of the UK. The implication is that Skills England will not simply administer funding or manage qualifications, but will instead have a proactive role in shaping the future workforce in line with national priorities.
Leadership and governance
To oversee the establishment of Skills England, the government has appointed Richard Pennycook as the interim Chairman. Pennycook brings a wealth of experience to the role, having previously served as the CEO of the Cooperative Group and currently acting as the lead non-executive director at the Department for Education. His background in both corporate leadership and public service positions him well to navigate the complexities of cross-sector coordination and institutional reform.
Leadership is a critical factor in the success of Skills England, not only in terms of setting a vision but also in terms of maintaining momentum through the transitional period. Pennycook’s appointment signals an intention to bring high-level corporate thinking into the management of public sector transformation. The task ahead involves not just the integration of responsibilities and structures, but also the creation of trust among stakeholders who may have differing priorities and expectations. For Skills England to succeed, it will need to demonstrate both competence and transparency in how it operates, how it allocates resources, and how it sets its strategic objectives.
In the months ahead, further appointments are expected as Skills England begins to staff its leadership team and technical working groups. These appointments will likely draw from a mix of government, industry, and academia, ensuring that a wide range of perspectives and expertise inform their planning and execution. Ultimately, the credibility and legitimacy of Skills England will depend not only on its policy outcomes but also on the diversity and strength of its leadership.
Strategic purpose and long-term goals
At its core, Skills England is about driving a shared national ambition to improve the UK’s skills base and close the gap between current capabilities and future demands. The government has repeatedly stressed that the current system is too fragmented, too slow to respond to change, and too disconnected from the real needs of employers and local economies. In this context, the purpose of Skills England is twofold: first, to provide strategic oversight and coordination, and second, to act as a catalyst for systemic change in how skills are developed, valued, and deployed.
One of the most notable features of this new approach is the integration of local and regional actors into the national strategy. Historically, skills policy has often been dictated centrally, with limited input from those closest to the challenges on the ground. By contrast, Skills England aims to foster collaboration between national and regional stakeholders, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of local labour market dynamics. This localisation of strategy, within a national framework, is intended to improve the relevance and impact of skills interventions.
Over the next decade, Skills England is expected to take on a number of major responsibilities. These may include setting national priorities for skills development, managing funding mechanisms, supporting curriculum design and qualification reform, developing labour market intelligence tools, and promoting innovation in skills delivery. The success of these initiatives will depend on the organisation’s ability to build partnerships, influence policy, and remain agile in the face of change. In essence, Skills England is envisioned as both a think tank and an implementation body, capable of translating broad economic goals into practical, deliverable outcomes in the education and employment sectors.
Institutional inheritance and policy continuity
A significant part of the Skills England story will be how it integrates or replaces existing bodies such as the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. Since its creation, IfATE has been responsible for regulating and developing technical education qualifications, including apprenticeships and T-levels. While its work has delivered important benefits, it has also faced criticism for being overly bureaucratic and slow to respond to changes in employer needs. By absorbing IfATE’s functions, Skills England will inherit both its strengths and its challenges.
This institutional inheritance raises important questions about continuity, transition, and accountability. Stakeholders will want reassurance that valuable elements of the current system are retained, while inefficient or duplicative processes are eliminated. Moreover, there will be concerns about potential disruption during the handover period, especially for employers and training providers who rely on clear guidance and stable funding to operate effectively. To manage this risk, the government will need to communicate clearly and regularly about how the transition will unfold, what timelines will be followed, and what interim measures will be put in place to ensure stability.
Another dimension of continuity lies in the government’s broader industrial and economic policies. Skills England will not exist in a vacuum; it will be part of a wider effort to prepare the UK economy for the challenges of automation, climate transition, demographic change, and global competition. As such, it will need to work closely with other departments and agencies to ensure alignment between skills strategy and industrial policy. This includes collaboration with sectors such as health, digital, green technologies, construction, and advanced manufacturing—all of which face pressing skills shortages that require urgent and sustained intervention.
Expectations and early reactions
Although Skills England is still in its formative stages, the announcement has been met with a mix of cautious optimism and strategic interest. Employers, particularly those in high-growth or high-demand sectors, have welcomed the idea of a more joined-up and responsive system. For them, the prospect of more flexible training options, better coordination with local government, and faster approval of new qualifications is highly attractive. However, there is also a strong desire for more detail on implementation, funding, and governance.
Training providers and further education institutions have similarly expressed interest, though their concerns tend to focus more on operational clarity and stability. They want to understand how Skills England will interact with existing accountability frameworks, whether it will support innovation in pedagogy and curriculum design, and how it will ensure equitable access to funding. There is also considerable interest in how Skills England will approach quality assurance, particularly in light of previous controversies around apprenticeship standards and course approvals.
Trade unions and employee representatives have highlighted the potential benefits of a national strategy that includes worker voice and prioritises job quality alongside job quantity. They argue that a successful skills strategy must go beyond supply-side reforms to consider the demand-side conditions that enable good employment outcomes. This means addressing issues such as wages, working conditions, and career progression—areas that Skills England will need to consider carefully if it hopes to deliver truly inclusive growth.
In sum, the early signals are promising, but expectations are high. Skills England has the potential to act as a transformative force in the UK’s education and employment landscape. However, it will require clear direction, robust stakeholder engagement, and sustained political will to realise its ambitions. The coming months will be critical in setting the tone for what could become one of the most important institutional reforms in UK skills policy in a generation.
The Role of the Growth and Skills Levy
As Skills England begins to take shape, one of the most consequential policy areas it will influence is the reform of how skills training is funded in the UK, particularly through the proposed Growth and Skills Levy. This marks a critical evolution from the current Apprenticeship Levy, which has been in place since 2017 but has faced widespread criticism for its limited flexibility, underspend, and failure to drive large-scale employer engagement outside of traditional apprenticeships.
The new government’s vision is rooted in an understanding that economic renewal and inclusive growth cannot be achieved without a dramatic increase in workforce capability. This includes not just young people entering the labour market, but adults in need of reskilling, upskilling, or career redirection. The Growth and Skills Levy is designed to support this ambition by unlocking investment, enhancing employer control, and broadening the scope of eligible training.
For employers, this reform is not simply administrative—it represents a fundamental shift in how they are expected to engage with skills development. In this section, we explore what this means in practice, how it aligns with the broader work of Skills England, and what employers should prepare for in the months and years ahead.
What is the Growth and Skills Levy?
The Growth and Skills Levy is the government’s proposed replacement for the existing Apprenticeship Levy. Unlike its predecessor, which restricted spending to approved apprenticeship standards, the Growth and Skills Levy is intended to offer employers greater flexibility in how they invest in training.
Under the new approach, employers will be allowed to use levy funds not only for apprenticeships but also for a broader range of training options. This could include modular short courses, pre-apprenticeship training, and potentially accredited in-house programmes that align with occupational standards. This broader eligibility is designed to make the levy more relevant to a wider set of employers and job roles.
In addition, the new levy is expected to be more closely aligned with both local and sector-specific skills strategies. Skills England will play an active role in ensuring this alignment, helping to direct investment toward areas with the highest potential for economic and social return. Another important feature of the reform is its enhanced support for small and medium-sized enterprises, which have historically struggled to access and utilise levy funding due to bureaucratic and financial barriers.
The Growth and Skills Levy also introduces new expectations for transparency and accountability. A simplified reporting system is likely to be introduced, making it easier to track the effectiveness of training investments and ensuring that public resources are delivering tangible outcomes for employers, learners, and the economy as a whole.
Why reform the Apprenticeship Levy?
The Apprenticeship Levy was originally introduced to encourage employers to invest more actively in training, but it has not fully delivered on its promise. One of the most prominent issues has been the significant underspend, with billions of pounds returned to the Treasury rather than being reinvested into workforce development. This outcome reflects the restrictive nature of the current system, which limits how and on what employers can spend their levy funds.
Employers have also criticised the lack of flexibility within the scheme. Many find that apprenticeships, which often involve lengthy commitments and rigid structures, do not suit their immediate or evolving training needs. The current model has also favoured large employers with the resources to navigate the system, while smaller organisations have found the process too complex or financially unviable.
Another major criticism has been the system’s narrow focus. By concentrating almost exclusively on long-form apprenticeships, the levy has missed opportunities to support more dynamic, shorter-term training pathways that are better suited to fast-changing industries such as digital technology, green energy, and health and social care.
The transition to the Growth and Skills Levy reflects the government’s intention to respond to these challenges by empowering employers with more choice, simplifying the administrative burden, and aligning the funding system with broader economic needs. It also reinforces the government’s view that a modern skills system must be adaptable, inclusive, and forward-looking.
How Skills England will support the levy’s rollout
Skills England will play a strategic leadership role in the implementation of the Growth and Skills Levy. Although the operational mechanics will still sit within the Department for Education and associated funding bodies, Skills England will serve as the central authority guiding policy decisions and ensuring coherence across regions, sectors, and stakeholders.
One of its key responsibilities will be to produce and disseminate high-quality labour market intelligence. This intelligence will be essential in identifying where skill shortages exist, which sectors are growing, and how training provision can be best targeted. By providing this data in a transparent and accessible way, Skills England will help employers, providers, and policymakers make better-informed decisions.
Beyond data, Skills England will work to align levy investments with national industrial strategies and local economic development goals. It will ensure that employer investments are not occurring in isolation but are connected to a broader vision of regional prosperity and national competitiveness.
The organisation will also serve as a convener, bringing together employers, education providers, trade unions, and regional authorities to develop shared strategies. By building this ecosystem of collaboration, Skills England can prevent fragmentation and drive coordinated investment in the most pressing skill areas.
In addition, Skills England will monitor and evaluate the performance of the levy over time. This will involve tracking the impact of training on productivity, job creation, and career progression, and using those insights to adjust policies where needed. Through regular review and feedback, Skills England aims to foster a culture of continuous improvement and accountability.
What does this mean for employers?
The introduction of the Growth and Skills Levy represents a substantial opportunity for employers to take a more active and strategic role in developing their workforce. First and foremost, it provides them with significantly more autonomy in choosing the types of training they wish to support. Employers will no longer be confined to traditional apprenticeships but will be able to fund a wider variety of programmes tailored to their specific operational needs. This means they can respond more quickly to technological change, market demand, and employee career aspirations.
At the same time, employers will be encouraged to collaborate more closely with local partners. The new system will reward partnerships between businesses, colleges, universities, and local authorities that co-design training solutions based on local labour market insights. Skills England will act as a facilitator in these partnerships, ensuring that employer-driven solutions align with broader economic and social objectives.
With this increased flexibility, however, comes a greater expectation of accountability. Employers who use levy funds will be asked to demonstrate clear outcomes, such as improved productivity, higher staff retention, or positive wage progression among learners. These performance indicators will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the levy and may influence future access to public funding or policy incentives.
Employers will also need to think more strategically about workforce planning. This means conducting skills audits, mapping current and future capability needs, and identifying opportunities for upskilling or reskilling existing staff. Those who begin this work early will be better prepared to take advantage of the new system and to influence how it evolves during its early years.
Challenges and uncertainties
While the Growth and Skills Levy presents significant opportunities, it also raises important challenges that must be addressed during the transition period. One major concern is the timeline for implementation. If the government moves too quickly, without sufficient consultation or support, it could create confusion and disrupt ongoing training programmes. On the other hand, a delayed or overly cautious rollout could undermine momentum and fail to deliver the urgent skills reforms the economy requires.
Another challenge is the readiness of training providers to adapt to a more modular, employer-driven model. Colleges and independent providers will need to evolve their offerings to reflect new priorities, which may require changes in staffing, curriculum design, and quality assurance processes.
Equity is another important issue. There is a risk that large employers, who have greater financial and administrative capacity, will dominate access to the new system, while smaller firms and organisations in underfunded regions may struggle to compete. Skills England will need to monitor this closely and introduce safeguards to ensure fair access across the board.
Finally, there is the risk of administrative complexity. While simplification is a stated goal of the new system, the introduction of new eligibility criteria, reporting mechanisms, and oversight structures could create additional burdens unless carefully managed. To avoid this, the government and Skills England will need to work together to streamline processes and ensure that employers can engage with the system without excessive bureaucracy.
Devolution, Labour Market Partnerships, and the Role of Place
An effective skills system must not only respond to national economic imperatives but also reflect the needs, opportunities, and identities of local places. Across the UK, labour markets vary significantly—from the digital hubs of the South East to the manufacturing centres of the Midlands and the health and care demands of ageing populations in coastal and rural areas. A one-size-fits-all approach to skills planning cannot succeed in such a diverse environment.
The Labour government has signalled a major shift toward place-based policymaking by committing to greater devolution of skills powers and funding, underpinned by the creation of Labour Market Partnerships. This reflects a growing consensus that local leaders, employers, and educators are best placed to understand and respond to their regional challenges, provided they have the right data, capacity, and authority.
In this new landscape, Skills England will act as both a facilitator and a guardian of coherence. It will support local autonomy while ensuring national priorities, such as net zero and economic growth, remain connected to what happens on the ground. This section explores the practical implications of this agenda, how it will be delivered, and what it means for local authorities, providers, and employers.
A new wave of devolution in skills funding and control
The Labour government has committed to expanding and deepening devolution agreements, particularly for mayoral combined authorities (MCAs) and local enterprise partnerships that demonstrate readiness. These new deals are expected to transfer additional powers over adult education budgets, skills commissioning, and apprenticeship support, beyond the limited autonomy previously afforded through the Adult Education Budget (AEB) in certain regions.
Crucially, this new wave of devolution will be shaped by performance and trust. Areas that can demonstrate strong governance, clear priorities, and effective delivery will gain more influence over skills funding streams. The intention is to create a virtuous cycle: greater local control leading to more responsive provision, improved learner outcomes, and ultimately, stronger local economies.
At the same time, the government is clear that devolution will not mean deregulation. Skills England will provide the framework for consistency, ensuring that local plans align with national ambitions for inclusive growth, fair employment, and sectoral transformation. It will offer support where needed, but also act as a check against duplication, inequality, or inefficiency.
Labour Market Partnerships: Institutionalising collaboration
Central to the government’s local approach is the creation of Labour Market Partnerships—new governance structures that bring together employers, training providers, local government, trade unions, and other stakeholders to co-design local skills strategies. These partnerships are intended to replace the fragmented and often short-term collaborations that have characterised the English skills landscape in recent years.
Labour Market Partnerships will be responsible for developing clear, evidence-based skills plans rooted in local economic realities. This means using up-to-date labour market information, business insight, and learner feedback to identify priorities—whether that’s closing digital skills gaps, strengthening health and social care pipelines, or developing new green economy training pathways.
Skills England will provide guidance and oversight to ensure these partnerships are inclusive, transparent, and accountable. It will also help share best practices, enabling areas to learn from each other rather than operate in isolation. By embedding collaboration into the governance of skills delivery, Labour Market Partnerships aim to create more sustainable and adaptable systems—ones that evolve with employer needs and labour market shifts.
The evolving role of local authorities and providers
In this new skills ecosystem, local authorities will need to step into a more strategic, coordinating role. While they will not be expected to deliver training themselves, they will act as conveners of local systems, setting priorities, brokering partnerships, and monitoring outcomes. This will require both capability and capacity, and the government has indicated that funding and technical support will be made available to build this capacity where it is currently lacking.
Training providers—especially further education colleges—will also experience a shift in expectations. Rather than operating primarily as individual institutions competing for learners and funding, they will be expected to work as part of coordinated local systems, aligned to shared outcomes. This could include joint planning of provision, shared curriculum development, and closer integration with employers through Labour Market Partnerships.
Skills England will support this shift by providing national data, guidance on planning frameworks, and oversight to ensure local systems are working in the interests of learners and employers. It will also help mediate where collaboration is weak or local governance is underperforming.
Importantly, this agenda will require a cultural change in many places—from competition to collaboration, from institutional independence to shared responsibility. But the potential benefits are significant: a system where every actor understands their role, works toward common goals, and is accountable for results.
Risks and opportunities in local devolution
While the move toward localism offers many advantages, it is not without risks. There is a danger that unequal capacity across regions could lead to uneven outcomes, with some areas making rapid progress and others falling behind. This could reinforce existing geographic inequalities unless mitigated by careful design and targeted support.
Another challenge lies in the transition from centralised to decentralised models. It will take time to build the trust, systems, and relationships required to make devolution effective. There is also a risk that if local plans become disconnected from national priorities—or each other—the system could become fragmented and inefficient.
To address these risks, Skills England will need to strike a delicate balance: giving local areas the freedom to lead while maintaining a shared sense of direction. It must also invest in capacity-building—not just in terms of funding, but in leadership, data literacy, and collaborative working.
The opportunity, however, is clear. With the right support, Labour Market Partnerships and devolved authorities can create responsive, inclusive, and locally-owned skills systems that are far better equipped to meet the needs of their communities and economies. Done well, this could be one of the most transformative aspects of the government’s skills strategy.
Equity, Social Mobility, and Lifelong Learning
One of the starkest truths behind the UK’s long-standing skills challenges is that opportunity has not been equally distributed. Too many individuals—whether due to geography, background, or circumstance—face barriers to accessing quality education and training. The result is a system in which potential goes unrealised, inequality becomes entrenched, and economic growth is held back by a mismatch between talent and opportunity.
Skills England has been designed to help change that. Alongside its mandate to support national productivity and regional development, it has a clear responsibility to promote inclusion, fairness, and lifelong learning. These are not side goals—they are central to a system that must work not just for high-performing sectors or traditional learners, but for people at every stage of life, in every part of the country.
In this final section, we examine how Skills England will champion this more inclusive vision: tackling entrenched inequality, empowering adult learners, and making lifelong learning a reality—, ot just a policy aspiration.
Tackling systemic inequality in access to skills
Access to training in the UK has long been shaped by factors far beyond talent or motivation. People from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to access higher-level qualifications, more likely to drop out of education early, and less likely to benefit from employer-sponsored learning. Geography compounds these divides: rural areas, post-industrial towns, and coastal communities often suffer from limited provision, poor transport, and lower employer demand for advanced skills.
Skills England will seek to address these structural inequalities through better targeting of investment and support. By analysing detailed labour market and demographic data, it will help identify the communities and cohorts most in need of intervention, whether that’s NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) young people, low-paid adults, or older workers at risk of redundancy.
The organisation will work with local authorities, colleges, and training providers to ensure that the offer in these areas is not just expanded but made more relevant, accessible, and supportive. This may include flexible delivery models (such as evening or online courses), wraparound services (such as childcare and transport), and embedded advice and guidance to help learners navigate their options.
Critically, Skills England will also monitor outcomes across different demographic groups to ensure that public investment is driving real progress on equity. It will publish regular data and analysis to hold the system to account, and intervene where progress stalls or inequalities widen.
Rebuilding lifelong learning for the modern world
The idea of lifelong learning is not new, but for too long in the UK, it has been underfunded, under-promoted, and poorly connected to both employer demand and personal aspiration. The decline in part-time adult learning, the erosion of community education, and the lack of flexible funding have all contributed to a system in which opportunities to retrain or upskill later in life are patchy at best.
Skills England aims to help reverse this trend. Working with the Department for Education and devolved authorities, it will support the rollout of a new lifelong learning entitlement, enabling adults to access funding for modular courses, short-term upskilling, and even full qualifications throughout their working lives. This is about building a culture of learning that does not stop at 18 or 21, but continues as technology, industries, and careers evolve.
The organisation will also work to integrate learning more effectively with work itself. This means supporting in-work progression pathways, developing new digital and hybrid models of delivery, and encouraging employers to take a more proactive role in training not just recruits but existing staff. Skills England will provide guidance and data to help employers understand the return on investment from upskilling their workforce, particularly in sectors with high levels of low-paid, low-security employment.
At the same time, it will champion inclusive design and flexible access across all aspects of the syste, so that workers with caring responsibilities, disabilities, or other barriers are not left behind. This will require a shift in how courses are structured, marketed, and supported, and Skills England will work with providers to raise standards and share best practice.
Careers, guidance, and the role of aspiration
Equity in skills is not just about formal access—it’s about whether people believe that learning is for them. In many communities, a lack of visible opportunities, trusted guidance, and successful role models can lead to disengagement and low aspiration, particularly among young people. Too often, the careers advice system has been fragmented, outdated, and overly focused on university as the default or only ‘high-status’ route.
Skills England will play a coordinating role in strengthening the country’s careers infrastructure. It will work closely with the Careers & Enterprise Company, local authorities, and employers to improve the quality, visibility, and consistency of guidance, particularly for those entering or re-entering the labour market. This means more accessible information about pathways like apprenticeships, T Levels, technical qualifications, and sector-specific training, matched to local job opportunities and real-world wages.
In addition, Skills England will support better integration between careers advice and actual training opportunities. It will encourage partnerships that link advice services with providers and employers, ensuring that people can move seamlessly from aspiration to action.
The aim is to build a system in which individuals—regardless of background—can see a path forward, understand the steps needed to achieve it, and receive support along the way.
What success looks like
Ultimately, Skills England’s impact will not be measured solely in economic terms. Its success will be judged by whether it helps change lives—by making it easier for someone to find a secure job, transition careers, or achieve a long-delayed qualification. It will be measured by whether the postcode a person is born into still dictates their earning potential. And it will be measured by whether the UK becomes a country in which people of all ages and backgrounds can learn, adapt, and thrive.
By embedding equity and lifelong opportunity into the foundations of the skills system, Skills England has the potential to do something genuinely transformative, not only for individuals but for the resilience and inclusivity of the economy as a whole.
Final Thoughts
Skills England represents more than a new institution. It is the beginning of a new approach to how this country thinks about skills—who they are for, how they are developed, and what role they play in our economic and social future. It reflects a shift away from fragmented initiatives and short-term fixes, toward a system that is joined-up, inclusive, and grounded in place.
At the national level, Skills England will bring the strategic coherence that has long been missing, coordinating investment, aligning supply with demand, and ensuring that the system serves the needs of the future economy. But its success will depend just as much on what happens locally: on the strength of Labour Market Partnerships, the ambition of devolved authorities, and the responsiveness of providers and employers to their communities.
Perhaps most importantly, Skills England signals a belief in people and potential. It says that adult learners deserve a second chance. That workers deserve access to better jobs, not just any job. Young people deserve pathways that are as clear and supported as the university route. And that skills policy is not just about economic output, but about social mobility, dignity, and human opportunity.
Getting this right will take time. There will be challenges, missteps, and lessons to learn. But with sustained political commitment, genuine collaboration, and clear accountability, Skills England could lay the foundation for a system that is not only better aligned but fairer, more dynamic, and better prepared for the future.
This is a moment of genuine possibility. The question now is whether we seize it.