The Department for Education have published the results of their employer pulse survey 2021. A must read for all in involved in Education. The results are, based on a survey of 5,000 employers, highlighting trends in: training activity; engagement with apprenticeships; work placements; knowledge of T-Levels and much more.
The topics covered in the survey include many that have been asked in previous iterations of the employer skills survey and the employer perspectives survey conducted by the department, such as:
- training activity
- apprenticeships
- traineeships
- work placements
It also asked new questions about:
- home working in response to COVID-19
- T Levels
Just under half (48%) of employers had funded or arranged any training over the last 12 months for any employees of their establishment. This is substantially lower than in previous waves of ESS (61% in 2019, and 66% in both 2015 and 2017).
There has been a reduction in off-the-job training; overall a quarter (25%) of employers had provided such training over the last 12 months, compared with 43% in 2019 and 48% in both 2015 and 2017. Employers were more likely than previously to have only arranged on-the-job training (23% vs. 17-18% between 2015 and 2019).
Training employers were more likely to have used private sector training providers than public providers, though compared with 2016 there has been a reduction in the use of private providers (49% vs. 60% in 2016) and a slight increase in the use of public providers (18% vs. 15%). There was some overlap, with 15% of training providers using both public and private providers to deliver external training. Only 3% solely used public providers.
Overall, around a third of all employers were either slightly (25%) or very interested (10%) in working with external training providers to identify employees’ skills needs.
Apprenticeships: Approaching a quarter of employers either had apprentices at their site at the time of the interview (12%) or offered apprenticeships but did not have any current apprentices (11%). The overall proportion offering apprenticeships (23%) was higher than in 2019 and 2016 (19%).
Among those not offering apprenticeships, almost two thirds (65%) mentioned at least one structural barrier to offering apprenticeships, most commonly because apprenticeships are not seen as suitable for their size of establishment (21%, rising to 26% among establishments with 2 to 4 employees), because they are not looking to recruit any staff (17%) and the perception that apprenticeships are not offered in their industry / sector (9%). Structural factors have increased as a barrier to offering apprenticeships from 62% in 2019.
Over a third of employers not offering apprenticeships (35%) said they had made an active choice not to do so, up from 32% in 2019. This was mainly because their current staff already had all of the skills required (15%).
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