A new policy brief has been published by SKOPE researchers James Robson, Adam Saunders, Yushan Xie, Helen Tattam and Xin Xu.

This working policy brief sets out a proposal for reconceptualising the role of employers in England’s post-16 education and skills system. It is informed by over two decades of research at Oxford University’s Centre on Skills, Knowledge, and Organisational Performance (SKOPE), and is based on a consultative process, drawing on input and perspectives from a SKOPE Employer Roundtable held on 29 July 2025. The roundtable brought together employer representatives from a wide range of sectors, including the eight growth-driving sectors highlighted in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy (2025), and government officials from the Department for Education (DfE), Skills England, and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), to discuss a renewed vision for employers within the skills system. This was supplemented by thirty-one in-depth interviews with individual employers and industry stakeholders, as well as a subsequent workshop with government officials from DfE, Skills England, DBT, HM Treasury, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

England, and the UK more broadly, is facing widespread skills gaps, shortages, and mismatches driven by a long-standing disjuncture between employer skill demand and both training provision supply and uptake, which is becoming increasingly acute with rapid technological and industrial change. These challenges emphasise an urgent need to establish a more active and engaged role for employers within England’s skills system.

Our research suggests that such a shift in employers’ role will bring better alignment between post-16 education and training provision and employer needs, enhance productivity, and foster the innovation and workforce transformation needed to drive up opportunity, growth, and economic security within the context of these challenges. Such a shift in employers’ role is vital for employers as it enables them to achieve improved outcomes for securing the skilled workforce needed to compete and grow. To achieve these goals, this paper proposes two overarching strategic objectives:

1. Reframe the policy discourse on the role of employers in England’s skills system fundamentally, to move from an employer-led focus to an employer-engaged approach

2. Develop a clear and operationalisable articulation of specific roles of employers within England’s skills system

This paper also makes four key recommendations to achieve these strategic objectives and thereby renew the role of employers, and transition to an employer-engaged system:

1. Employers should view the skills agenda as a strategic priority that should be owned by their senior executive leaders.

2. Employers should engage in place-based approaches to the design and delivery of skills systems, including contributing to action to increase porosity, collaboration, and coordination between education and skills training stakeholders.

3. Employers should be involved in the ongoing redesign of jobs and occupations, with a focus on aligning working approaches and career structures with the long-term needs of their sector, providing ‘good work’, and developing appropriate practices and structures that make best use of employees’ skills.

4. Employers should engage in both sector-level and cross-sectoral occupational discussions with government and skills system experts, to ensure a coherent and coordinated approach to skills foresighting and workforce planning.

This policy brief consists of four sections and an Annex. It will first present the case for change, highlighting the urgency and importance of shifting the role of employers in England’s post-16 education and skills system, along with the key skills challenges and success factors emphasised at the Employer Roundtable and in the employer interviews. Second, it will propose two strategic objectives for reconceptualising the role of employers in England’s skills system and four recommendations. It will then showcase the return on investment (ROI) in workforce training and upskilling in the case of the manufacturing sector in order to illustrate one industry example of the economic case for change. This paper does not intend to set out a comprehensive plan for realising the renewed vision for the role of employers that it proposes. However, in the final section, we propose some tangible next steps for helping to deliver on the paper’s recommendations and SKOPE is keen to continue to support discussions and programmes of work to develop a practical pathway to achieving these strategic objectives. Finally, the Annex presents an analysis of employer interviews regarding key employer skill priorities.

We gratefully acknowledge the employers and government officials who have generously shared their time, experiences and insights during the development of this work. Their contribution has been invaluable in shaping the analysis and recommendations proposed here.