Make UK launches Industrial Strategy Skills Commission

20 November, 2024

Over the coming months, the Industrial Strategy Skills Commission will meet regularly, supported by an advisory board from across the skills and industry spectrum. The Commissioners will draw from a mix of written evidence from the widest possible range of stakeholders and will make on-site visits to manufacturers and training providers to look at best practice as part of their solution gathering. Their findings will be reported into the Government early next year.

Robert Halfon, Co-Chair of Make UK’s Industrial Strategy Skills Commission said: “The new Industrial Strategy Skills Commission has urgent work to do. This unique bringing together of business, industry, government, educational experts and providers and policy makers must change the perceptions of working in industry and find the quickest and most effective way of attracting the best talent into the engineering and manufacturing sectors.

“The new Government has committed to reforming the current Apprenticeship Levy and replacing it with a Skills and Growth Levy. But it is imperative that we make sure this new levy provides enough of the right apprenticeship opportunities at all levels so that employers across the length and breadth of the country have access to the skills they and our country need to grow.”

Tom Watson, Baron Watson of Wyre Forest and Co-Chair of Make UK’s Industrial Strategy Skills Commission, added:

“I have long advocated for a robust Industrial Strategy and supported Make UK in highlighting how the United Kingdom was unique among advanced economies in lacking such a strategy, a gap which has stifled our industrial success.

“Labour’s new Industrial Strategy will be pivotal in reigniting growth and providing a much-needed boost to British industry, which requires a stable environment to foster investment, unlike the inconsistent initiatives of recent years. At its core, the strategy must include a dynamic and practical skills plan to supply the trained workforce businesses desperately need to thrive.”

Stephen Phipson CBE, CEO of Make UK, the manufacturers’ organisation said: “The Industrial Strategy can only succeed if businesses have access to people with the right skills. The new Industrial Strategy Skills Commission will look at the cumulative training and recruitment issues currently facing the manufacturing sector and drill down for the best solutions.

“Our latest research is showing the demand for companies looking to upskill their current workforce continuing to rise at a time that the pipeline for technical teachers is declining. Add to that the fall in the number of new people coming into the sector, an ageing workforce and more people than ever taking early retirement, the result is significant skills gaps across the workforce which need to be tackled quickly if industry is to grow and prosper.”

The new Industrial Strategy Skills Commission will shortly issue a written call for evidence in order that the widest possible number of companies across the whole of the manufacturing sector can contribute to make sure the solutions work for all companies, large and small. The Commission will also be hosting targeted evidence panels to delve deeper into specific issues within the skills system.

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