Overview
Demand for engineering and technology skills continues to rise across the UK. These skills support national priorities including productivity, global competitiveness and the transition to net zero. They also underpin key growth sectors identified in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy that are central to the UK’s economic resilience and security.
Many of these sectors, including energy, defence and infrastructure, operate across internal UK borders and rely on mobile workforces. As a result, engineering and technology employers often need to recruit, train and deploy apprentices across nations.
Within the devolved skills systems across the UK, differences in how apprenticeship systems operate can have practical consequences for workforce development and mobility.
To better understand the impact of these differences, EngineeringUK is examining how the Scottish and English apprenticeship systems interact and how this shapes outcomes for employers and learners. We undertook a series of in-depth interviews with cross-nation employers and sector body representatives. This was followed by a cross-border workshop with employers, engineering and technology sector bodies, training provider representatives and officials from Scottish Government and Skills England. This paper summarises the findings from the workshop and interviews.
Key findings
Employers delivering apprenticeships across Scotland and England report consistent challenges arising from differences in system design, funding rules and delivery structures.
While variation across devolved systems is expected, participants highlighted that the cumulative effect of multiple points of divergence can create operational complexity and make coherent UK-wide apprenticeship pathways difficult to sustain.
Key challenges identified by employers include:
- navigating 2 systems with distinct qualification and funding models
- limited availability of equivalent pathways across nations
- cross-border funding rules and funding constraints
- provider-market and delivery constraints
- data and tracking difficulties
- ongoing policy churn creating uncertainty
Key insights
Participants identified a number of opportunities for further exploration, which could improve coherence without altering underlying devolved structures. These include:
- clearer mapping of how occupations, skills, pathways and funding routes relate across the systems
- employer focused navigation tools to support engagement with both systems
- funding flexibility within existing landscape
- pragmatic solutions for small cohort pathways
- shared skills language or UK 'layer'
- provider market approaches to support cross-border demand
The briefing sets out the challenges and opportunities in more detail, drawing on employer and stakeholder evidence.
Who this is for
- Policymakers
- MPs
- Employers
- PEIs
