Skills England: how new technologies can help achieve its mission and transform the job market
Will Stronge
21st October 2024
The opportunity space of Skills England
In today’s rapidly evolving workforce, ensuring that workers have the right skills for the future is crucial. With the launch of Skills England, a groundbreaking initiative by the UK government, there’s a commitment to transforming opportunities for workers and driving growth across the country. As outlined in the government’s announcement, Skills England aims to tackle the growing skills gap and create a more dynamic, adaptable workforce that meets the demands of emerging industries.
But to achieve these ambitious goals, we must leverage cutting-edge technology—particularly artificial intelligence (AI). One promising approach lies in AI-powered skills extraction, a method already gaining traction for its ability to analyze workforce capabilities and align them with market needs. At Autonomy, we’ve been using machine learning to help bridge skills gaps for a number of years (with our ASPECTT database), and more recently have been using AI techniques to extract skills demand from job vacancies in order to improve skills identification.
This post explores how AI can usefully augment Skills England’s mission and significantly boost skills development in the UK.
1. Automating skills mapping with AI in order to understand the population’s skills and employer demand
AI, particularly through large language models (LLMs), can be harnessed to automate skills extraction and mapping at scale. As discussed here, AI-driven skills extraction models can analyse job descriptions, resumes, and even academic qualifications to identify and categorize key skills. These capabilities allow for more real-time insights into the skill sets present within a population and, crucially, what employer’s are asking for.
For Skills England, this means AI could help create a dynamic, national skills map — an essential tool for matching workers to job opportunities and training programs. By using LLMs to extract skills from various documents (e.g., CVs, job descriptions, or training records, employers), the initiative can understand which competencies are underrepresented, in demand and so on in different regions and sectors. This real-time skills intelligence could allow Skills England to better target investments in training and upskilling, ensuring the workforce is prepared for future challenges in sectors like green energy, digital transformation, and advanced manufacturing.
2. Enhancing career pathways and recommendations
One of the most exciting potentials for AI is in providing personalised career advice. As AI models become more sophisticated, they can offer recommendations tailored to individual workers based on their existing skills, experiences, and interests as well as what employers in their area are asking for. Skills England could harness this by deploying AI-driven career pathway tools that recommend relevant training programs, apprenticeships, and job opportunities to workers.
For example, a worker in a traditional manufacturing role may not realise that their skills could be adapted to a high-growth sector like renewable energy or robotics. AI can bridge this knowledge gap by analysing a worker’s current skill set and recommending reskilling or upskilling paths that align with future job market demands. In fact, we’ve built our ASPECTT database to do precisely this.
3. Forecasting future skills needs
By analysing historical employment data, emerging industry trends, and technological advancements, AI can identify which skills are likely to be in demand in the near future. By taking historial job vacancy data and nowcasting from there, as we are at Autonomy, we can start building towards more accurate forecasting too. This capability could be critical for Skills England as it looks to preemptively address skills shortages in key areas.
For instance, with AI forecasting models, Skills England could prioritise investment in cybersecurity training programs, anticipating the increased demand as businesses continue their digital transformations. Likewise, the initiative could encourage retraining for workers in sectors that are likely to be automated in the coming decade, helping to mitigate potential job displacement.
4. Helping create inclusive growth through AI
AI’s ability to identify skill gaps (through the above mentioned techniques) on both an individual and regional basis is particularly valuable for creating inclusive growth. Regions with historically lower access to high-quality jobs, such as the North East or rural areas, can benefit from targeted interventions based on AI-driven skills analysis. By identifying underutilised skills in these areas, Skills England can design region-specific training programs that foster local talent and bring new opportunities to underserved communities.
Conclusion: let’s get started
As Skills England embarks on its mission to reshape the UK’s workforce, certain AI techniques could be valuable means to activating new opportunities, smoothing the matching between job seekers and employers and giving policymakers a better handle on industrial strategy. From real-time skills mapping and personalised career advice to forecasting future skills needs, AI can empower workers, help businesses plug gaps, and create a more adaptable, inclusive economy.
By leveraging AI’s capabilities, Skills England can accelerate its goal of transforming opportunities for all, ensuring that the UK is prepared for the challenges of tomorrow. The Autonomy Institute will be continuing its work in this area in order to contribute to these efforts.
Will Stronge is the Autonomy Institute’s Director of Research.