How universities can rise to the challenge of an unpredictable future workplace

Universities UK has this month launched Future Universities – a commitment to ensuring universities can play their part in the country’s future prosperity. It comes at a moment when rapid social, economic and technological change is reshaping the workplace – and when the value of degrees is being questioned more loudly than ever.

Last month, the Vice-Chancellor of King’s College London Professor Shitij Kapur argued that the UK now has a “surfeit” of graduates and that students must accept that a university degree is no longer a “passport to social mobility.” In this climate of uncertainty, the challenge is demonstrating how universities transform lives while contributing to the nation’s prosperity as a whole.

Phil Smith CBE, Chair of Skills England, has rightly highlighted the scale of the challenge in the government’s Assessment of Priority Skills to 2030. The findings are stark: by 2035, 88 per cent of new jobs will require graduate level skills, and the UK will need more than 11 million additional graduates to fill these roles.

Yet public confidence in university degrees does not match this reality. New polling shows that 70 per cent of the public believe universities could do more to contribute to the country’s success, and many employers feel graduates are not yet well prepared for the workplace.

This gap, between perception and reality, must be closed. This is why a recent Leicester roundtable with businesses as part of UUK’s campaign was important, and why it cannot be the last. Employability cannot be an add-on, but an integral part of a university’s mission.

A challenge for the future

Whether we in higher education like it or not, debates about the value of a degree overwhelmingly focus on employment outcomes. Parents, students, political leaders and the media increasingly scrutinise just one question above all others: does a degree lead to a good job?

As the UK’s most super-diverse city, foremost in my mind is the importance of social mobility and inclusion. In particular, how we can ensure graduate preparedness for those who may typically need a greater ‘leg up’ to succeed in the world of work while ensuring we are providing the right skills and experiences for them to do so.

According to a report published by UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO), compared to the average:

• Black applicants are 45 per cent less likely to receive a job offer.
• Asian applicants are 29 per cent less likely to receive a job offer.
• Graduates from low socioeconomic backgrounds, including white working-class graduates, are 32 per cent less likely to receive a job offer.

Our commitments are clear and the messages we heard from businesses were unambiguous: universities have a responsibility to work closely with employers to better understand their needs, employers stand to gain from inclusive recruitment practices, the skills and talent offered by graduates are as valuable to employers as they ever have been, and perhaps most importantly of all, our collective ability to address these challenges will be decisive in driving the UK’s growth in a fiercely competitive global economy.

What we learned

There are five things that stood out from our roundtable:

1. For too many students, the playing field is not level, even after they have achieved a degree. The question of how we address those disparities was central to our discussion
2. Employers felt that the mass use of AI in applications meant that graduates must distinguish themselves through their behaviours and demonstrating commitment to researching the role.
3. Graduate skills, which are adaptable, transferable across sectors, and resilient throughout a career are critical to the UK’s prosperity in a competitive, technology-enabled global workplace.
4. Graduate employability is a core component of the higher education mission and universities should consider embedding continuous dialogue with employers in their civic partnerships.
5. Employers are feeling the pressure from increased national insurance contributions and higher costs. Government can help graduates and businesses through targeted measures to support economic growth and graduate recruitment.

Joining these themes is an optimism that revitalising the economy will be the sum of our efforts and one of the reasons these conversations will continue.

What we’re going to do

As Vice-Chancellor of a research-intensive university, I know tension can sometimes exist between research priorities and employability. But I have become convinced that every degree – in every discipline – must include meaningful, work-related learning that prepares graduates for work. The pace of change in AI, digital technologies and labour market structures demands it.

From September 2026, every undergraduate degree at Leicester will incorporate a minimum of 100 hours of work related experience. We are the first research-intensive university to make such a commitment. This will ensure all our graduates leave with applied experience, tangible skills, and the confidence to articulate what they can do.

We are also expanding employer partnered, inclusive pathways – including leadership accelerators, entrepreneurship or research placement years, and industry supported hackathons. These programmes give underrepresented students the opportunities they need not simply to compete, but to thrive.

Embedding employability, embracing inclusivity, and responding at pace to technological and social change is the only viable path forward for universities.

Universities must rise to the challenge of social mobility and inclusion by closely working with employers; that universities must regard the UUK campaign as the start of a process that will lead to a fundamental shift in the way we engage with employers; and that we need to engage with employers in order that they recognise the value of all graduates and the benefits they bring to the workplace.

When we don’t know for certain what the future holds, we know for certain our humanity is needed to shape