Levelling up skills qualifications in parts of England to current levels seen in London could take up to 30 years unless urgent, large-scale corrective action is taken, new analysis by global education provider Emeritus has found. 

Almost three in five (59%) workers in London are classified as highly qualified, compared with just a third (34%) of workers in the North East. For the North East to catch up to the current London level it would take over 30 years, and over 15 years for other regions such as the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, the East of England and the West Midlands. The analysis found overall a North-South divide, finding that it will take the North at least a decade to catch up to the South’s current qualification rates.

The analysis also found that lower qualification levels could be contributing to driving down workers pay packets across the country. The two regions with the lowest qualification rates overall - the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber - also had the lowest average wages. When compared to London, the workforces in these regions were earning on average up to £9,000 less per year and it’s set to get worse.

The findings suggest that workers outside of London could be at an increased disadvantage on the jobs market as higher technical qualifications become increasingly important to employers. There are consistent skills shortages in roles that use these higher technical skills, and according to Government data there will be almost 200,000 more of these jobs in the economy over the next five years. 

While higher qualifications are growing in importance, workers are facing financial barriers to accessing them. A recent report by the CBI found that a lack of funding and prohibitively expensive training were the second biggest barrier to accessing skills needs, after only the pandemic. A quarter of employers said this was a barrier to meeting their skill needs. 

Despite Government efforts to improve access to adult education - including the new Lifetime Skills Guarantee and the Lifelong Loan Entitlement - the number of highly qualified workers in London is rising faster than in all other regions, and the Lifelong Loan Entitlement will not be in place to address this until 2025. The Levelling Up White Paper, published last week (Wednesday 2 February), included a new mission to increase the number of people completing high-quality skills training but it did not commit any new funding before 2024/25, which could leave many of those who could benefit unable to access it until then. 

Emeritus is calling on the Government to make closing these skills gaps a core part of its levelling up strategy, by introducing a new earned learning entitlement and expanding access to higher skills learning. 

Anand Chopra-McGowan, General Manager, UK & Europe (Enterprise) at Emeritus, commented: 

“Higher levels of education drive up wages and productivity, so getting those in work the skills they need will help level up the country and economy. It cannot be a case of London versus the rest - vocational skills and adult education must be accessible, affordable and effective for all across the UK.” 

“The ambitions in the Levelling Up White Paper are welcome, but the Government must translate these words into concrete action, supporting those who could benefit from skills and training now not later.”

Emeritus is calling for several policy changes to help improve access to education for those who need it as part of the creation of a high-wage high-skill economy:

1. Make training accessible and affordable with a new Earned Learning Entitlement for higher level skills, giving workers up to £1,000 a year to fund skills based learning. Modeled on the French funding system for adult education and funded from the existing National Skills Fund, this would work alongside the Government’s existing commitment to the Lifelong Loan Entitlement to remove financial barriers to upskilling and retraining 

2. Make it possible for those currently working to get the skills they need for the future by relaxing the equivalent of lower qualification rule, making it easier for those already well qualified to retrain in new areas to get the skills they need for the jobs of the future 

3. Unlock the potential of working people with an expanded Right to Retrain, ensuring that it allows them to train for the jobs they and our economy will need in the future, not just the jobs they are doing now