This paper represents the latest in a line of papers and think pieces that the author has prepared on this topic – for the UK government, the UK Skills and Productivity Board, and the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council – since 2014. It seeks to explain why trying to bring skills supply into closer alignment with demand for skills from employers is a much more demanding task than might at first be imagined, and that simple notions of getting supply to ‘match’ demand may produce policy goals that cannot be delivered.
