Source:  CBI
Posted:  17th May 2010

The Confederation of British Industry’s has published Ready to grow: business priorities for education and skills, sponsored by qualifications awarding body EDI. The report publishes the results of an employer survey of 694 employers. Their study found that 63% of companies saw investment in skills as very important to their strategic objectives and future growth and 72% planned to maintain or increase spending on training and development, 28% planned to cut training budgets.

Investment in skills remains strong
Employers are concerned about the basic skills of their current workforce. The biggest problem is with IT skills, where two-thirds (66%) of employers report concern. However, half of employers are also troubled by employees’ basic literacy (52%) and numeracy (49%) skills. In the past year alone, a fifth of employers have arranged remedial training for young people they have recruited from school or college, in literacy (18%), numeracy (18%), and IT (22%). When it comes to the existing workforce, employers are also providing basic training in literacy (22%) and numeracy (18%), with the need for IT training even higher (43%). Interestingly, more firms this year (48%) than last (39%) say improving leadership and management skills is a key priority for them, and this is even higher for the public sector (73%).

STEM skills needed for the future
Employers were asked which A level subjects boost a young person’s job prospects. Most said young people should choose subjects which improve business ability and knowledge of science and numeracy – namely, business studies (42%), maths (21%), English (13%) and physics or chemistry (9%). The A levels employers rate least in terms of employability are psychology (3%) and sociology (1%).

Studying science to degree level also helps to boost employment prospects. Many employers (42%) do not require a particular degree subject, but a third (34%) say they prefer recruiting people with a STEM-related degree. Three-quarters (72%) of employers value what STEM-skilled employees bring to the business. Over two-thirds (69%) value the analytical skills, and nearly two-thirds (61%) the problem-solving skills, which are developed through a rigorous education in STEM.

Despite the recession, nearly half of employers (45%) say they are already having difficulty recruiting staff with skills in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), with manufacturers and science-related businesses having the most difficulty finding highly-skilled people to fill their posts. Even more companies (59%) expect to have difficulty finding STEM-skilled people in the next 3 years.

Business needs support for apprenticeships
The survey shows that employers remain committed to providing apprenticeships, despite the recent recession. Over half of employers in our survey (54%) are currently involved, although participation is lower among SMEs. A fair proportion of firms (14%) plan to get involved with apprenticeships in the future. Across the sectors, the highest provision is in construction (78%) and manufacturing (56%). There is a need to expand involvement in the science, technology and IT sectors, currently only 33% of these firms offer apprenticeships. In the survey, employers suggest how more businesses could be encouraged to take part in apprenticeships:

• Over half (56%) say incentive payments for taking on and training apprentices
• Nearly half (46%) want red tape surrounding apprenticeships to be cut
• Two-fifths (41%) suggest supporting larger firms to train more apprentices than they need for the benefit of SMEs in their sector
• Nearly two-fifths (39%) want qualifications to be more relevant to businesses’ needs