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FE & Skills in 2026 - A look ahead · Insights from the Edge

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're listening to a new podcast from the Edge Foundation.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: This series is designed to be heard in short bursts, over coffee or a commute.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: We'll bring together experts in policy, research and practice.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: We'll explore how education and the world of work are developing for young people and education providers.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be asking how that world will give young people across the UK the knowledge and skills they need to flourish in their future life and work.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Insights from the Edge.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, I'm Sarah Gluck, Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager at Edge.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: In this episode, we're looking ahead to see what's on the way for FEN skills in 2026.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Last year ended with a bumper list of announcements, so now seems like a good time to catch our breath and prepare for what's to come.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'm delighted to be joined by two experts in this space, LJ Rawlings, CEO of Youth Employment UK, and Ben Rowland, CEO of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, or AELP as it's more commonly known.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome and happy new year to you both.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: The end of 2025, we saw so many big announcements, many of which were around the youth guarantee, which is all about tackling the increasing number of young people not earning or learning.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: LJ, this is something that Youth Employment UK has been championing hard on.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: What can we expect to see here in 2026?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what a year 2025 was for youth policy and particularly youth employment policy.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some really interesting moves, of course, as we saw department reshuffles, we saw quite a big chunk of money coming through from the Treasury to continue the rollout of the youth guarantee.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're really keen on seeing how all of that's going to land.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Genuinely, although we felt like it, you know, government would argue we were in year one of the Youth Guarantee last year, some of the delivery of it, in terms of kind of how the command authority trailblazers were rolling out their programs, is really only just started.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So in some combined authority areas, we've only just got young people coming through programs.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So there's still a way yet to go with how successful the youth guarantee is going to be, which programs that have have had investment are going to really show impact in terms of you know transforming the lives of our young people that are benefiting from it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think what's really important to note is that you know it the Youth Guarantee isn't landing in 2026 in a stable market, the economy is not in the best of places.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The global economy and macroeconomics is really quite terrifying already by January the 8th, as it is today.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it's got a hell of a lot of work to do as a policy, and and it's not going to be the only policy that's a youth employment and skills policy.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's still a lot more around the edges of this.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm particularly focused on how we support the combined authority or local authority areas that don't have trailblazer money and don't have a youth guarantee yet directly.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's a still a lot more to do this year to make that policy really come to life and work.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, we're also seeing the Milbourne review at the same time that all of these policy announcements are coming out.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I do wonder whether this is a case of uh trying to build the plane while it's flying.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was wondering, LJ, what your thoughts are on that, and then Ben will come to you.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean I mean a lot of policy this last 12 months, 18 months has felt like building the plane was flying it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's why none of us had a break, as Venom says, you know, because actually what what time of the year could we have taken off when there wasn't new policy announcements and investment or the case and arguments to be made for budgetary decisions?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the Melbourne review is a really interesting choice, right, from government.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there is a little bit of chicken and egg still at play here.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's the sort of thing that would have been useful to have brought in before deciding to build a youth guarantee, you know, if it was going to be used as an evidence and sort of level maker to see where the change needs to come.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: It is happening in retrospect, really, of the youth guarantee being out there.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's on Alan Milburn, and and I do have a briefing in from Alan's team, and I'm giving evidence into the committee, as many colleagues will do, but it is on that team to find the differentiator that this inquiry can make.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think Alan Milburn's really clear.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: There have been this type of inquiry before.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: There has been sort of some deep dives, lots of research.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a What Works and Youth Employment in the Form of Youth Futures Foundation that we've invested in in the country.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is this going to do that's going to bring the difference?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm hoping for is it starts to bring more departments into the conversation, right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: We know economic inactivity is a really big issue.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of levers that the Department of the Health have got, and they're not necessarily always at the table when we're talking about employment policy.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping that the review is going to look much more deeper at some of those entrenched system issues and bring some of the system-wide responses.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And often I think in previous inquiries they've worked in quite isolation of one policy area rather than multiple.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think the difference here will be that it'll be sort of more cross-cutting.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Ben, do you want to come in on that?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Building the airplane while in flight is I think that's actually a a feature, not a bug, of every government.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Governments just uh I mean, one of the, as it were, the prices we pay for being able to kick our governments out and elect new ones in, i.e.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: democracy, is that they have to be seen to be doing things ahead of time.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I I I do think that is the case, and that is part of the problem that that we've got.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because we've got DCMS, of course, as well, who hold, you know, they launched their you know youth service strategy last year, and if that's all about supporting the organisation to engage young people outside of the statutory education system, that they need to be in this as well.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that the most you know the the stakeholder group that we I think should be front and centre for this is employers.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean we're we're still waiting to hear, I think, aren't we, LJ, what the 820 million is for, but uh even if some of that is for for you know generous wage subsidy, uh employers aren't legally obliged to create these roles.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh, you know, whether those are with apprenticeships or or or without.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so we really need to make sure that what employers think what really understand what would make them want to take young people on who and give them their first chance.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there are loads of things to look at in that, and I think a lot of employers would be really excited and pleased to play their part if it's teed up in the right way.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: And that takes us on to our next topic nicely because something that employers will be interested in will be apprenticeships.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: Now, apprenticeships have seen a lot of reform in recent months from assessment reform to the introduction of foundation apprenticeships, and of course, we're going to see the introduction of the growth and skills levy this year in April with the introduction of so-called apprenticeship units.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was wondering, Ben, do you think that this will be enough to take apprenticeship numbers back to pre-2017 levels, especially for young people?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if if it's done in the right way, and I think they also need to think about finding some money to supplement what they pay to achieve some of these outcomes.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: The reason why the apprenticeship numbers have skewed away from young people, away from SMEs, and away from the north and the Midlands to London and the South East is because of the sort of naturally occurring economics that the apprenticeship levy system created.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So they need to take heart from that and say, well, if we design a system that tilts things one way, well, we can design a system that tilts things the other way.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And there are now both perceived and real uh costs for employers in taking on younger people and for uh providers who are the vital handholders of many of those employers and young people for working with SMEs.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's just costs a lot less to work with one NHS trust on, I don't know, 30 apprenticeships than it does to work with 30 SMEs on 30 different apprenticeships, and nothing in the system at the moment recognises that.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So having something like that, I think, would will will really will really help.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then back to the point that LJ made at the beginning about the important role, the vital role here of devolved and local areas, whether they're mayoral strategic authorities yet or not, is really important.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I mean on this particular agenda, I think the I really want to see some sort of really active link up between the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers and what they're learning and how that's being spread, and this 140 million that's been set aside for apprenticeship hubs in the mayoral strategic authority areas, um, which was also announced as part of that flurry of announcements, how they join those up with then foundation apprenticeships, which could be really powerful in hospitality and retail.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: So finally, a year later than should have happened, they're getting to the right sectors.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: But that in particular, I think, could be really important.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: One more thing, and then I'll I'll I'll but what I would really like to see, or what I think is available for the government, is to say that use take up of apprenticeship units, which a lot of them all want to do, because it's short courses for existing employees, and that's the flexibility that employers wanted.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's vital and they could be really good, but they can make use of that of money for that, great and skills levy money for those courses, contingent somehow on giving young people apprenticeships.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you you know to free up your next you know, tranche of money for apprenticeship units, well, you've got to take on 20 young people as apprentices first.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Some sort of conditionality there.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think employers would kind of go, that's quite a smart move.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: I get what they're doing there.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks, Ben.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: I I agree on the brokerage point.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's really, really interesting what this pilot will actually end up looking like, um, especially given Edges report agents of change, which looks at this.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, LJ, I was wondering what are your thoughts on all these different apprenticeship changes?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: Will that be enough, do you think, to solve the youth employment problem?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I really agree with Ben in terms of we've got to balance out supply and demand to get to the numbers.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got to smooth the system, make things easier for employers, particularly SMEs, to get involved and to want to take on apprentices.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've had a really negative narrative about the value and opportunity of hiring young people for a long time in this country.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of negative press about young people, which creates a perceived risk, I think Ben was talking about, as does the employment rights bill then create caution and nervousness.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we need to really take stockers actually, and sometimes this isn't just a government responsibility, I think this is a societal responsibility.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: We all live in communities, we all want to be served, you know, services or um products or you know, live in economies that are growing.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that's that means we need our young people to be in productive, good quality work.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you know, the society that we want and think we want to live in just doesn't happen.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a need for, of course, government to make the policy better and to make it easier, but there is an absolute role for us as business leaders, leaders in our communities to be more ambitious about the futures of the young people who live in and around us.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think we've lost our way a little bit with some of that ambition and desire.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think that, if I may, sorry, come in.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that is so important that we've we've somehow built a narrative.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: We it's a double narrative.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've built a narrative for employers that somehow this this cohort of young people coming up into the labour market is somehow wildly different and unprepared or lazy or something that makes them try to cover and I and they're not.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we've also built up a perception amongst those young people that employers and the world of work is this sort of alien world where they somehow don't know the codes and the rules, and it's all it's like no, no, no, we're we're much closer to each other, and we just need to do a little bit of demystifying and you know reintroducing both those those those groups together.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And often, and often you're you're not wrong, and and the world has ever been thus, you know, young people have never left education and been immediately employable and and ready to you know add huge value to an organisation.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: They need a training and onboarding and mentoring.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I was mentored 25 years ago as I entered the labour market.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Those things have always been required.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: We just have a different expectation, I think, or memory of what employment was like 20 years ago.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, the the big missing link here for a lot of this is work experience.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: There is so many, the youth voice census will tell us less than 26% of our young people are getting work experience in school.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: We know there's less Saturday jobs, less part-time work, less young people able to access those earlier employability opportunities.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, their expectation or understanding what the world of work looks like and the behaviours aren't being trained or experienced early enough, which makes this gap seem all the more wider.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we need employers to be really partnering with schools and colleges, really getting involved in this will come up in the T levels, the V levels, the opportunity to ensure that qualifications are embedded with work experience.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, then our young people and employers are closer together by the education framework around them.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, LJ.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: And that actually brings us very neatly on to our next point as well.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well done, um, which is all about the introduction of V-levels, which are new level three qualifications that the government announced in the post-16 white paper that will sit alongside A levels and T levels as the default vocational option.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: So the consultation on V levels just closes in just a few days at the time of recording.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: LJ, what do you think is the most important thing that the government should consider when designing these qualifications?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, super, super interesting, isn't it?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um at Youth Employment UK, we led a commission on post-16 education reform back in 2024.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think the report was launched, and Edge were one of its sponsors and contributors.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a real shared consensus around post-16 options and pathways, and the V-levels feel like they're an opportunity to bridge the gap.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: We had a lot of concern about taking away uh vocational qualifications like BTEX at level two and level three in replace of T-levels because of the types of young people they would leave behind being more rigorously academic and bigger weighted qualifications in the T-level space.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the V-level is, I think, the response to all of that concern and some amazing lobbying by friends and partners outside of our work.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, but I think there's a consensus about what the V-levels will need to be.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: We need a simple system that young people, parents, and employers can understand, firstly and foremostly.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: They need to be this kind of collaboration with employers, but that absolutely, as I've said, includes work experience.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: These need to be qualifications that are going to give young people confidence and employers confidence that young people can enter the labour market and they need to have clear progression routes, they need to be understood by UCAS HE providers and ensure that you can go from a level two to a level three and continue to upskill and continue to kind of your your lifelong learning development isn't sort of held back by them.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot in here.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think most importantly, with what we know about the demography of young people coming through the the next kind of five years of the education system, they will need to be super inclusive.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: We've got lots of young people with very poor mental health, high levels of special education needs and neurodiversity.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: These qualifications have really got to be able to be applicable and inclusive to those young people in particular, for me.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, they will be our next neat cohorts.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Ben, would you like to come in as well?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean I I would uh concur with everything LJ's said.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think the thing that's going to make V-levels a success or not, and you might spot a theme in some of what I'm saying, is the extent and the quality of employer involvement in them.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we think that the government needs to find a really effective way to involve employers in the creation of those V-levels.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's not outsourcing it, that's not saying you design it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: We still need to, it's a hardcore qualification that needs to go through the proper design process, but finding a way to get employer input into it.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I think we need to do, I mean, you LJ talked about it, about work experience being part of it.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd like to be, I'd like to be that to be quite an imaginative and broad set of things that they can think about.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the things that has sort of emerged for me over the last three or four months, just talking to people about, you know, so for example, we it's come out of the conversation around assess apprenticeship assessment reform.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, one of the key things you want to know, if you're the if you're an employer, if you're not the first employer of the apprentice, but the second employer, the next employer, you kind of want to know if the person's been is familiar with uh is comfortable with the identity and the culture of being in that occupation.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's the kind of thing, it was really powerful when someone said that to me, is actually if you're an accountant, people want to know that you get what it means to be an accountant, or if you're a bricklayer, or if you are uh a digital marketer.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's a kind of you know, every occupation has its um, you know, its its customs and practice, what makes it a uh an occupation.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you can start to do that at the V levels type stage.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so that is not saying nine weeks work experience, which is a nightmare for everyone, but saying we're going to bring people from that from that, those employers into the place.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we do, maybe you do podcasts, you know.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Here's here's the bricklayers podcast, and you have a couple of brick, and this stuff already kind of exists elsewhere, but you kind of bring it to bear so young people can go, what's it even like to be working in construction?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: What is it even like to be in, you know, what is this marketing thing that I've heard about?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And they get a sense of what that is about, which means that when they then come to saying, I'm gonna do some work experience or I'm gonna have a go at a foundation apprenticeship or wherever it might be, they feel like there is some, they have some sort of understanding of those, the unwritten rules of that kind of workplace, which is the bit that they fear.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: When you talk to people about what they're most worried about often when they start work, it's it's what I don't know, it's what's not in the formal induction.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: What are the unwritten rules?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, we can start to introduce those to people to make them feel more comfortable when they're 15, 16, 17, which then means they are that but a bit more confident and uh well equipped to take it on from there, should they choose to.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's such a good point about making these um routes feel a bit more accessible and a bit more interesting to these young people.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, sorry to put you on the spot, but what is one policy you'd love to see introduced this year, and what is one that you think would be best left in 2025?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um LJ?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's just the expansion of the youth guarantee, a youth guarantee that's real for everybody everywhere.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Young people in Corby, and those that know me, they're listening to this, will know I reference Corby a lot, but young people in Corby should be entitled to a youth guarantee just as much as those in um Salford.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's have the youth guarantee everywhere for everybody.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Ben?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Following that, uh that that in terms of making sure something that is true everywhere, the the policy I would like to see really extended this year is um is supplements for training providers to deliver to SMEs.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because SMEs we know are the best at employing younger people, younger people who are um perhaps have greater needs, providing those training providers with some sort of supplement I think will be really good.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the one I want to see left behind in 2025 is uh this sort of rather slavish adoption of the industrial strategy sectors as a focus for Skills England, which I don't think is needed.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think those sectors need extra help for skills.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Some of those big companies who are very profitable will carry on training regardless.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and to the point about youth unemployment, it's not gonna be the best one in the world, brilliant though their apprenticeship schemes are, it's not gonna be apprenticeships in BAE and AstraZeneca that are going to solve the youth employment crisis.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be high street shops, small trading estate businesses, and uh what they do is for that agenda every bit as important as the industrial strategy sector companies.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's wonderful.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a call for Skills England and the government to be less parochial, whether that be through looking at local authorities, not just combined or strategic authorities, and also looking beyond just those ISA sectors.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: I like how your but your answers kind of align there too.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: In future episodes, insights from the edge will be looking at education policy, emerging skills, inspiring research, and innovative practice.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: See you then.