Why the UK’s Skills Agenda now Rests on Employer-Provider Collaboration

2025 marked a turning point for UK skills policy. With the publication of the Industrial Strategy and Skills England’s report, a bolder national vision came into focus, and the stage appeared to be set for the workforce of tomorrow. 

Yet there was a missing middle between the ambition of the UK’s skills agenda and the realities employers face when turning frameworks into functioning capability pipelines. Twelve months on, practice still hasn’t caught up with policy. 

Fiona Aldridge’s recent article captures just how busy 2025 was for skills policy, and her call for 2026 to become a year of “implementation rather than announcements” feels exactly right.

The direction of travel is clearer than ever.

The question now is: What actually needs to happen over the coming months to translate policy into meaningful workforce upskilling?

A dense policy landscape

Government has put serious weight behind skills. The Industrial Strategy frames a 10-year partnership between government, businesses and workers, with targeted sector plans, regional growth levers, and a sharper focus on talent pipelines.

Meanwhile, Skills England’s Growth & Skills report surfaced persistent skills shortages, pressure points in apprenticeships, and the need for faster-moving, more flexible training routes. The Growth and Skills Levy is simultaneously widening the range of learning employers can draw on. 

All in all, the UK has built an impressive playbook. Actioning that playbook now rests squarely on employers’ shoulders.

Employers, it’s time to roll up your sleeves

Fiona Aldridge argues that “policies must respond to employer demand for skills.” I would go a step further: employers themselves must take genuine ownership of how learning happens inside their organisations once their demands have been met.

That starts with proactively interrogating their organisation’s capability gaps, forecasting how roles will evolve over the next three-to-five years, and designing development pathways that keep pace with commercial reality. Digital and data literacy form part of that picture, as do leadership skills for managers stepping into broader remits, and transferable skills that empower mobility across functions and careers. 

This may be a more active role than employers are used to, but it’s how policy becomes operational. Mapping workforce needs, freeing up time for learning, aligning training with live transformation programmes, and measuring whether new skills translate into productivity are all responsibilities that sit on the employer’s desk. Without that internal machinery, even well-designed national reforms struggle to change outcomes on the ground.

Collaboration has moved from helpful to essential

Granted, it’s a tall order for businesses to bear this burden alone. Consistent themes across the Skills England report are that apprenticeship standards move too slowly for fast-changing roles, SMEs in particular struggle with the administrative weight, and firms want shorter programmes and modular “bolt-on” training to enhance accessibility. 

Those pressures necessitate the collaboration between businesses and training providers. Passing a brief across the table won’t be enough. What’s required is ongoing, consultative partnerships where curriculum, assessment and delivery evolve alongside real job roles and capability needs. 

That closer working relationship will show its value in very practical ways, but only if both sides treat collaboration as something deeper than contract management: 

• Employers will need to bring real-time intelligence about emerging roles and shifting technologies into conversations with providers so training routes evolve before shortages become entrenched. 
• Providers must be able to adapt curriculum and assessment at pace, shaping delivery around live business priorities. 
• Training formats must be designed around operational reality. Businesses and providers need to understand how work actually happens inside the specific organisation, and how much capacity teams genuinely have, then choose and shape training formats around those conditions. 
• Learning must be linked to progression for skills programmes to unlock momentum. When employees see how new capabilities unlock internal pathways, development becomes a strategic lever rather than an isolated intervention.
• Administrative complexity remains the biggest brake on engagement, making streamlined processes, rapid feedback loops and iterative programme design central to whether collaboration genuinely works in practice.

Fiona Aldridge describes 2026 as a moment for “test and learn” implementation, where pilots mature into scalable solutions rather than being abandoned at the first obstacle. That principle applies just as strongly to employer-provider partnerships as it does to national skills policy.

The window for action in narrowing

Many employers may feel they are stepping up, but the reality is that over the past decade, employer-led investment in training has weakened (dropping by £6bn since 2022 alone) while levy funding has become a ceiling rather than a catalyst for broader capability building. The current policy agenda was designed to reverse that dynamic. Its success depends on whether organisations treat these reforms as a cue to raise their own ambition. 

There isn’t long to wait. The Managing Director of IMF recently cautioned that as new skills and roles reshape labour markets, sustained investment in education, broader retraining pathways, and stronger support for workforce mobility must be prioritised.

If the UK lags behind that call, consequences will follow: workers will face fewer viable routes into emerging roles, businesses will lose momentum, and the country’s ability to capture the upside of innovation will weaken.

Businesses grab the baton

If 2025 laid the foundations, the months ahead will decide whether the UK builds something sturdy on top of them. That starts with employers reviewing workforce plans through a longer lens, and engaging training providers early in conversations. 

It also calls for providers to work more consultatively with employers, shaping delivery through ongoing dialogue and shared accountability for outcomes. 
Policy carries promise if practice can catch up, and it can. The frameworks exist, the levers are in place, the baton is waiting to be grabbed by the next runner. And if it isn’t clear by now, that next runner is business.

By Al Bird, CEO at Instep