‘Apprenticeships a key route to learning skills’

ACCORDING to figures from the Office for National Statistics, an estimated 923,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training in the first three months of 2025.

- Lisa Davies — Head of Business Engagement at University of Staffordshire

That equates to roughly one in eight young people.

At the same time, employers continue to report skills shortages across sectors ranging from healthcare and engineering to digital technology and business services.

Those two realities should not coexist. If organisations are struggling to find talent while hundreds of thousands of young people remain disconnected from opportunity, something in the system is not working as well as it should.

The question is not whether we need more skills. The question is how we create more effective routes for people to develop them. For me, apprenticeships are a crucial part of the answer.

For too long, public debate has often framed apprenticeships and degrees as competing alternatives. In reality, they are both valuable routes into rewarding careers and both have an important role to play in supporting social mobility, economic growth and workforce development.

The question should never be whether one route is better than the other. The question should be whether learners have access to the right pathway for them.

What makes apprenticeships distinctive is their ability to combine learning and employment from day one.