|
Welcome to FE Soundbite Edition 831: 24th January 2026 | The Stat Nobody's Talking About: London Has The Highest Unemployment Rate In The UK at 7.2%
This is the weekly e-newsletter and e-journal by FE News: ISSN 2732-4095. We know life is busy, so here's a snapshot of the latest announcements and epic thought leadership articles from sector influencers and thought leaders across FE and Skills this week on FE News.
Gavin’s Reflective Perspective
I can't believe that this isn't the main discussion for this week in the UK... but Trump... being Trump, Davos, BETT... has taken centre stage.... We had the latest ONS Labour market figures this week. Work Foundation crunched the numbers and calculated that London has the highest unemployment rate in the UK at 7.2%, the average is 5.1%. This means that London's unemployment rate is 41% higher than the UK average (7.2% vs 5.1%)... in the capital city! Let that sink in for a minute!?
Ben Harrison, Director of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said:
"For those actively looking for work, young jobseekers and people in London, where figures indicate the unemployment rate has climbed to 7.2%, are facing the biggest challenges. As a key bellwether for the national economy, this is bad news for jobseekers in the capital and risks being replicated elsewhere without intervention."
Forget Greenland... this is bonkers! I wonder if any other capital city in the G7 has the highest unemployment rate in their country? This is surely, highly, highly unusual! Surely this needs sorting out, or ring alarm bells in Westminster?
Ben Harrison also highlighted (on the day the stats came out on Tuesday 20th January 2026): "Today’s data shows 3.86 million workless adults want a job, but weak vacancy levels and fragile employer confidence mean jobseekers are facing an increasingly competitive labour market. Worryingly for Ministers, there are signs unemployment may not yet have peaked".
If you couple this with the fact that there are 85,000 fewer vacancies than before the pandemic... the 80% employment rate set by the Government when they came into power 18 months ago, against the current employment rate of 75.1%!
Alarmed... we should be!
WorkWell
So you can understand why DWP announced WorkWell Expansion to Support up to 250k People Back into Work on the same day the ONS figures came out!
Rethinking Alumni and long term relationships with Students
Ian Pryce wrote an interesting article called Magic Numbers... which was looking at alumni... I think this needs deeper thought, how many providers, colleges and Awarding organisations actively look to develop a long term relationship with learners and students... from the get go? Actively seeking to keep in touch?
If we do an amazing job (FE and Skills are in the life-changing game)... and we want to encourage lifelong learning, why don't we try and encourage a learner to become a lifelong customer and for us to be a real education and skills partner?
Or... is the reality that we chase the funding cycles, as we are not encouraged to think long term about relationships with our students, or do we also 'live it out'... and they don't think about their own lifelong learning and development as a result of the sector's way of keeping in touch or seeing them as a potential repeat customer?
Alumni is cracking for employer engagement, cracking for student recruitment... not just your 'A list celebs' people see on social media, TV or film... but how about local celebrities (from the top restaurant owner, the biggest plumbing firm in the town that is trusted by everyone, to local solicitors who have been in X town for 30 years)... how can we celebrate their success and showcase their journeys? ... and make skills, being proactively encouraging continual development and helping students or future customers think about how they become continually employable. I am genuinely interested.
There's no funding stream for this… so the question becomes: are we as a sector willing to invest in this type of activity, are we willing to invest in keeping a relationship with someone for 3 years without a return (say from Level 3 and they go into uni or a degree apprenticeship), for 5 years, 10 years when they return back to learning? If not... why not? How do we develop lifetime relationships and see learners as future customers and partners? What do you think?
I hope you enjoy Soundbite this week. This is edition 831... and next week's edition of FE Soundbite is the 16th anniversary of FE Soundbite... talk about time flying!
Epic Exclusives Thought Leadership Articles
Our Top 3 Thought Leadership Articles This Week
Firstly, Navigating policy into practice: What AELP’s Apprenticeship Assessment Summit tells us about the year ahead By Simon Ashworth, AELP Deputy CEO and Director of Policy
Secondly, From The Terraces To Trades: How Football Clubs Are Tackling The NEET Crisis By Neil Wolstenholme, Kloodle Chairman
Finally, Magic Numbers By Ian Pryce CBE
This week, we also had some other Epic Exclusives!
Where Are Apprenticeships Going Under The DWP? By Andy Forbes, Executive Director of the Lifelong Education Institute
From Delivery to Impact: How Inclusion Shows Up in Everyday Practice and How Providers Prove It Works By Chris Quickfall, CEO of Cognassist
New Zealand’s Vocational Education System: Lifelong Learning – Where is the Strategy? By Stuart G A Martin, Founder of George Angus Consulting.
What’s New in the World of FE?
Announcements
Help Shape the Future of Post-16 Education in Wales By the Welsh Government
ONS Labour Market Data: Jan 2026: 90,000 Fewer Under-24s on payrolls since July 2024 By the Office for National Statistics (ONS)
WorkWell Expansion to Support up to 250k People Back into Work By the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
£40bn International Education Strategy Backs Colleges to Expand Overseas By the Department for Education (DfE)
The numbers (and stories) behind the Education and Early Years T Level By NCFE
Nominations Open For NCFE’s 2026 Aspiration Awards By NCFE
Reports
Employers asked to share their insights on managing multigenerational teams By Ciphr
Voices
Rethinking How Education Builds Relationships By Adam Herbert, CEO and Co-Founder, Go Live Data
Scotland’s Maths Wake-Up Call, and Four Practical Ways to Turn It Around By Dr Rashmi Mantri is founder of British Youth International College.
In The Know
We have two Collective Intelligence events planned for 2026... aka Collectives
We have big plans for upcoming Collectives, and you can get involved. One is on SEND in April .. and another on NEETs in June. We have learnt a lot from the recent Green Mindset Collective and we are drawing from this on how to give people more voice, more influence on the report... and to make the report more action focused (the Green Mindset Collective had a playbook for people to use, not just a dusty report that is never accessed, but something usable as a takeaway for the entire sector).
On 24th April 2026, at Tavistock Square in London, join us for the Bridging the SEND Transition Collective in partnership with ETF
On the 2nd June 2026, join us for the Breaking Barriers Collective event in partnership with Edge Foundation, working together collectively to solve the NEET puzzle.
These aren't conferences; these are collectives. These aren't lectures or chalk and talk, but interactive: it's rolling up your sleeves and making real change, where you get involved and actually give real input. These are two massively important Collectives, so join us and help shape the report and sector response!
We hope you enjoy FE Soundbite this week.
By Danny O’Meara, Operations Manager, FE News and | 