Lack of skills hits UK ability to win global contracts

One in five UK employers is struggling to fill skills gaps, according to a major new study.

The Skills in England report by the Learning and Skills Council found there were around 1.5 million employees in the UK whose bosses said they were not fully proficient in their current jobs.

This represents about 8% of total employment in the UK, meaning that skills gaps are a far bigger problem than recruitment. The total number of job vacancies in the UK is about 620,000.

The report found that the UK needs to develop more high-performance workplaces to compete in a globalised market and offering adult skills training is not the sole solution.

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It says managers need to be developed to motivate and encourage staff as well as making sure skills were deployed in the right places.

Today, the government will unveil its Skills White Paper to look at ways of closing the UK’s persistent skills gap.