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DfE, however, does not appear to be planning to give us more graduates
I’m a big fan of the idea of the Unit for Future Skills.
It’s an arm of the Department for Education, a data-heavy rethink of the work of the old Skills and Productivity Board. The job is a tricky one – understanding what skills will be needed in the future to inform provision – but it is essential.
Today’s new dashboard from the Unit for Future Skills doesn’t include much in the way of new data. The exception is an update to the Skills Imperative 2035 projections for STEM and technology jobs – a long running series of projections for the way in which the labour market will grow.
The main (baseline, blue) projection sees STEM employment grow by four per cent, while the other major option (technological growth, green) postulates a six per cent growth. You’ll note that these don’t appear terribly sophisticated – they are straight lines! – but growth rates for each vary by occupation beneath the bonnet.
The outlier projections are for a 10 per cent growth in each occupation (high growth, orange), and STEM employment at current proportions (blue) in line with projected population growth at two per cent.
The data released today also allows us to drill into employment trends by SOC code. First up, here’s a plot by the top level SOC group – the three red groups are those that OfS classifies as “graduate level”.
The big stand-out here is that the future growth of the job market is very likely to be focused on“graduate level” roles. This finding, which is underplayed in the announcement, presents something of a policy conundrum. If the indications are that an expansion of graduate roles is on the way, we need some serious thinking on expanding the number of graduates we train, or the number of graduates we import – and both of these options are politically off the table for the current government.
What we see instead is a bet that lower levels of education (level 4, level 5, modular) will suffice in providing a high-skilled workforce. And, when we drill down to occupation level, we can see the problem with this assumption.
In short, we need quite a lot of teachers and nurses. And for those professions, a degree or equivalent is pretty much required. For a lot of the new jobs that are projected, there is a professional body that requires a certain level of education for entry. Whereas the government has some say here (you don’t currently need a PGCE to teach in an academy school) professional standards are set and maintained by professionals.
But beyond this – if the growth is in graduate jobs more generally then it is fair to say that we might need more graduates. And this doesn’t appear to be something anyone is seriously planning for.