Education & Skills 
On 16 June, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Skills, Careers and Employment (APGSCE) held a roundtable on employer engagement in education, chaired by Lauren Edwards MP, and with opening remarks from Daniel Green, Director of Policy at the Federation of Awarding Bodies (FAB).
The session brought together parliamentarians, policymakers, education providers, employers, and sector intermediaries to examine what effective employer engagement in education looks like in practice and what would be required to embed it more consistently across the system. Drawing on the experience of models such as the Careers Hub and Local Skills Improvement Plans, we explored the barriers preventing wider and deeper involvement, including challenges facing SMEs, misalignment between education and employment systems, and questions of shared responsibility across government, industry and providers.
Participants broadly agreed that the most effective partnerships are characterised by reciprocity, clarity of purpose, and sustained collaboration rather than one-off consultation, and that a meaningful distinction exists between employer-led and employer-informed models of engagement. The legacy of the IfATE trailblazer model was discussed with mixed views, and there was broad interest in whether Skills England’s expert network approach can deliver the greater agility the system requires.
SME engagement emerged as a persistent challenge, with participants noting that qualification frameworks have tended to reflect the needs of larger employers and that administrative and compliance burdens act as a significant deterrent for smaller businesses. The structural lag between qualification design and labour market need was also identified as a fundamental concern, compounded by the difficulty employers have in articulating future skills requirements and the growing impact of AI on the nature of early career work.
The discussion examined the declining opportunities for young people to gain early exposure to the workplace, concerns about school capacity to coordinate work experience, and the implications of recent reductions in T-level industry placement hours. Fragmentation across the system was identified as a persistent barrier, with participants pointing to Careers Hubs and regional employer networks as mechanisms for improving coordination.
Underpinning much of the discussion was the question of culture and shared responsibility, with participants suggesting that clearer incentives and stronger government leadership will be necessary to shift the relationship between business and education from transactional to genuinely collaborative. The particular challenges facing universities with large international student populations, where recent visa regulatory changes have reduced employer willingness to offer placements, were also raised as an area requiring greater policy attention.
For further information, please contact Rhiannon Tuckett-Jones (Rhiannon.tuckett-jones@policyconnect.org.uk) or Max Bishop (max.bishop@policyconnect.org.uk).
Thank you to all those that attended and to our APGSCE members for supporting the session.
