Joseph Baker-Roberts
Public Affairs Advisor, EngineeringUK
Joe joined EngineeringUK as Public Affairs Adviser in 2026. He brings experience from both the private and third sectors in public affairs, stakeholder engagement and advocacy. His background includes supporting major infrastructure clients, as well as campaigning work on diversity, inclusion, and regulatory reform.
At EngineeringUK, Joe leads engagement with parliamentarians and policymakers, supporting the organisation's influencing work across engineering and technology education, workforce development and inclusion. He works to ensure the voice of the engineering and technology sector is represented in policy debates. This helps policymakers to improve opportunities for young people to enter engineering and technology careers.
Our reaction to party conferences, and yesterday's autumn budget
EngineeringUK’s policy team have had a busy autumn, attending all 5 of the major party conferences before turning our attention to the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget.
EngineeringUK’s policy team have had a busy autumn, attending all 5 of the major party conferences before turning our attention to the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget.
Party conference season provides a useful barometer for the national political conversation, outlining where political parties disagree, but also where they begin to align. Across all party conferences this autumn, one theme prevailed. Skills are increasingly being viewed, not simply as an educational issue, but an economic one.
Underlying the conversations around economic growth, artificial intelligence and environmental sustainability was one central question. Does the UK have the workforce needed to deliver its ambitions? The Budget reflected this thinking, combining investment in growth sectors with a continued focus on apprenticeships, employment and workforce participation.
Labour
With a renewed buoyancy, a newly appointed prime minister, along with a fresh ministerial team and revitalised activists converged on Liverpool. This year felt fundamentally different to last. In a passionate speech, the new Prime Minister gave members and observers alike a rare sense of anticipation. Threading through the manifesto laid out by the Prime Minister and ministers alike was a tone shift. Skills policy was no longer an educational issue, but central to the economic future of the nation.
As part of the NEPC, EngineeringUK led discussion on the fringes. Our CEO, Dr Hilary Leevers spoke on stage with Jacqui Smith to discuss how we make sure that the UK has the right skills to deliver the Industrial Strategy. Encouragingly, engineering and technology workforce issues felt increasingly central, rather than peripheral.
As expected from Labour’s new ‘King of the North’, devolution was a recurring feature of discussions, particularly around the impact on skills provision and education. There remained a significant interest in how Skills England will operate alongside devolved authorities and how local flexibility will be balanced alongside national workforce planning. While there was intrigue in the direction of travel, there was also recognition that detailed policy development and the resulting implementation will be challenging.
Conservatives
Despite being one of the quieter Conservative conferences for some time, there was a prevailing sense of cautious optimism. Leader Kemi Badenoch began crafting the party’s fault lines with both Labour and Reform UK. Shadow Ministers could be found across the fringes, taking part in engaging discussions around skills, infrastructure and the wider youth employment challenge.
Similarly to Labour conference, economic inactivity and the growing number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) featured prominently in discussions. However, while Labour speakers often framed these issues through the lens of delivering the industrial strategy and economic growth, Conservative discussions differed. They tended to focus more heavily on the barrier preventing participation, namely the role of regulation and administrative burdens on employers. There was a clear view across many sessions that these factors can discourage investment in skills and apprenticeships, especially among SMEs.
While the policy solutions proposed differed from those discussed at Labour, the underlying concern was often the same. How do we ensure employers can access the workforce they need to thrive?
Beyond the main 2 parties
On top of attending Labour and Conservative conference, the EngineeringUK policy team were busy attending Liberal Democrat, Reform UK and Green Party conferences.
The smaller parties offered different perspectives, but many of the same themes were present.
Amidst questions around the future of their current leader, the Liberal Democrats were keen to refresh their pitch to the nation. Discussions increasingly focused on economic growth, housing and infrastructure, with growing recognition of the constraint skills shortages place on them. Discussions around devolution, workforce planning and participation were particularly prominent. There was also strong engagement with EngineeringUK’s work on women and girls in engineering and technology, most notably with the 40 by 40: Gender equity in engineering and technology education.
At the Reform UK conference, there was understanding from the party that engineering skills would be required to deliver many of the party’s economic aims. Apprenticeships, technical pathways and practical routes into employment were lauded, with an explicit preference over the more traditional university route into engineering.
The Green Party, meanwhile, continued to position itself as Labour's principal challenger on environmental policy, arguing that government action is not moving quickly enough. Skills and education discussions were generally framed through opportunity, lifelong learning and social justice, with less emphasis on labour market demand than elsewhere. The party also unveiled a proposal to tackle the growing NEET challenge through a subsidised two-year jobs guarantee for under-24s. The conference was at times overshadowed by internal controversy and the challenges that come with rapid growth. However there was broad recognition that delivering the transition to a cleaner economy will require significant engineering and technical expertise.
What happened next? The Autumn Budget 2026
Party conference season gave us a sense of where political thinking is heading. The Autumn Budget provided the first real indication of how those priorities may begin to translate into policy.
This Budget was primarily about not “spooking the markets”, and to that end, it succeeded. However, it is hard to escape the sense that the Budget was just as notable for what was deferred as for what was announced. Several significant policy announcements, especially around employment, skills and welfare, have been delayed. These are pending the publication of the Milburn Review, which will result in a White Paper and legislation in 2027. While the government continued to prioritise sectors depending heavily on engineering and technology skills, there were relatively few measures to strengthen the long-term STEM pipeline. This includes education, technical pathways, teacher recruitment or increasing participation.
The next key milestones for EngineeringUK will therefore be the publication of the Milburn Review, the subsequent legislation, and the Spending Review in 2027. The coming months are likely to shape the policy environment for the remainder of this Parliament. This will make these months an important opportunity to influence future skills and workforce policy.
