UK Skills Deficiencies Getting Worse

Two damning new reports have highlighted the appalling level of skills deficiencies within the UK workforce. Firstly, a new report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has found that as of 2023, 13% of the workforce do not have all of the essential employment skills (EES) required to do their jobs, and that this is likely to increase to 22% by 2035 unless urgent remedial action is taken. Secondly, Coursera has found in their Global Skills Report 2024 that the UK ranks just 45th in the world in terms of proficiency in business and technological skills, down 7 places from 38th in 2022. That is well behind countries such as Japan (2nd), Germany (3rd), and France (5th).