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Welcome to FE Soundbite Edition 819: 18th October 2025.
NEBOSH is sponsoring this week’s Soundbite
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.
Soundbite Sponsor Spotlight
The Changing Learner Landscape: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities
Tim Oates CBE unveils new research on the 13th November at 1-2pm, where he will be exploring how 16-25 year-olds want to learn in 2024.
Supported by NEBOSH and the Federation of Awarding Bodies, Tim's report combines multiple strands of evidence revealing critical shifts in learner expectations and behaviours. Discover what young people really want from skills training, which assessment strategies are working across Europe, and the key trends that will shape technical and vocational education over the next decade. This is essential for anyone working with learners or planning provision in our evolving landscape.
Gavin’s Reflective Perspective
What Does Navigating EHCPs And SEND Provision In Schools Have To Do With Apprenticeships, Skills, Lifelong Learning And More?
That title sounds like the start of a bad joke. It is bad, and it is no joke, unfortunately! I was very interested in the Sutton Trust report (Double Disadvantage) that highlighted that low income familes are facing major inequalities to access SEND support. This is really significant as the Sutton Trust highlights and reminds us that EHCPs are legally binding documents outlining a child’s needs and the specialist support required, as opposed to the looser category of ‘SEND Support’. If this feels all a bit 'schoolsy' for us and you... Please bear with me...
The Affluence Gap in EHCP Access Casts A Long Shadow
The Sutton Trust found that among all children with SEND, those from more affluent homes are more likely to secure an EHCP (and the legally binding SEND Support), partly because families spend more money on the process. The Sutton Trust found that 68% of middle-class parents spent money on their EHCP application, compared to just 28% of working-class parents. 11% of middle-class parents spent over £5,000 on their application!
When you consider that 1/3 of all level 3 Apprentices have an undiagnosed Neurodiversity... when you look at the massive GCSE retake requirements in FE...when DfE's Progression Pathways data highlights that 8% of full-time education leavers at 16 go straight to NEET... This is massively significant.
The Select Committee had a recent SEND report (and we have the SEND White Paper on the way)... it was so chunky that the Select Committee report had 95+ recommendations!.. and highlighted that 72% of students who fail to achieve Grade 4 at 16, still have not achieved this standard by 19, with students with SEN support around 40% less likely to pass English and Maths.
Does This Further Highlight The Need For A Dedicated SEND FE and Skills Budget For Support?
The SEND Select Committee report highlighted that 26.3% of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan holders are aged 16-25, BUT... less than 10% of the high needs budget reaches this age group. Most critically for FE providers, there is currently no dedicated funding stream for SEN support in Further Education. So when you build in the findings from the Sutton Trust. This is massively important and has a massive knock-on effect!
Helen Hayes was lead on the Select Committee on SEND.. she also urged Government not to cut Universal Credit for young Care Leavers this week. Helen is doing some cracking work to be fair!
More Established Long Term Patterns Are Appearing In The Labour Market Data
We had the latest ONS labour market data released this week. UK employment rate decreased 0.2 percentage points to 75.1% (against a Government target of 80% employment rate)... it has been at the 75% mark for a while now! UK unemployment rate increased 0.2 percentage points to 4.8%, and the UK Economic Inactivity rate was largely unchanged at 21.0% compared with March to May 2025.
Economic Inactivity In Young People Higher Now, Than Just After The Pandemic
One in five (19.9%) or around 830,000 young people are now Economically Inactive, compared with 16.4% young people, in 2021 as the UK was emerging from the Covid 19 pandemic!
Vacancies Are Down For the 39th Consecutive Quarter!
Take that in a minute... the number of vacancies has reduced 39 times x three months. This is a consistent drop in job vacancies for the past 2.25 years! This quarter it was only a drop by 1.3%, which is roughly 717,000 vacancies, but the vacancies decreased in half of the 18 industry sectors!
The number of unemployed people per vacancy was 2.4 in June to August 2025, up from 2.3 in the previous quarter (March to May 2025). That is a significant pattern on the employment and labour market!
Grad Jobs Have Fallen By 8%... BUT Apprenticeship Jobs Have Increased By 8%
Interestingly, also this week, Institute of Student Employers (ISE) released their Student Recruitment Survey 2025 of ISE members, which are mainly large employers offering formal Graduate and Apprenticeship programmes.
ISE data highlighted that Graduate hiring had fallen by 8% year-on-year, yet Apprentice hiring increased by 8%. However (as with all stats and data)... Graduates still outnumber Apprentices and therefore the overall entry-level job market is down 5%. Overall, the data showed that employers who recruited students onto both pathways, hired 1.8 Graduates for every Apprentice this year, which is down from 2.3 in 2024. Projections for next year suggest the ratio will decline further to 1.6:1.
ISE started collecting this data in 2015, so a decade now. This is the first time graduate jobs have fallen since the 12% decline during the pandemic in 2020. Apprentice recruitment has been in a state of growth since 2015. So very interesting.
So... Are we seeing new patterns in the job market and highlighting different skills or support needs?
Also big news... City & Guilds Have Sold Their Commercial Awarding Organisation to PeopleCert To Focus on Social Impact
Another big Soundbite again this week.
I hope you enjoy FE Soundbite this week.
Epic Exclusives Thought Leadership Articles
Our Top 3 Thought Leadership Articles This Week
Firstly, What Difference Could Moving Skills to DWP Make? By Stephen Evans, Chief Executive of Learning and Work
Secondly, Paul Cox on Energy & Utility Skills Strategy: 312k New Workers Needed and Why FE Matters By Paul Cox, Group Chief Executive at Energy & Utility
Finally, Why Soft Skills Will Decide Who Thrives in 2035 By Dr Rashmi Mantri, founder and chief executive of the British Youth International College BYITC
This week, we also had some other Epic Exclusives!
Advancing Representation and Equity: Why Colleges Should Embrace the Ethnic Representation Index By Mandeep Gill
How HE Can Prepare for an AI-Driven Job Market By Sheila Flavell, COO, FDM Group
The Skills System is Broken: Why FE and HE Still Don’t Join Up By Imran Mir SFHEA, FSET, CMgr MCMI, FRSA
What’s New in the World of FE?
Announcements
City & Guilds Sells Their Commercial Awarding Organisation to PeopleCert To Focus on Social Impact By City & Guilds
Helen Hayes urges Government not to Cut Universal Credit for Young Care Leavers By the Education Committee
ONS Labour Market October 2025: 75.1% Employment Rate and Vacancy Numbers Fall For the 39th Consecutive Period By Office for National Statistic (ONS)
ISE: Apprenticeships Rise As Graduate Vacancies Drop 8%. Apprenticeship Hiring Increased By 8% By Institute of Student Employers (ISE)
New One-Stop Support Service to Increase Jobs for the UKs Financial Services By HM Treasury
Introducing Elevare Civic Education Group By London South East Colleges (LSEC)
Exam pass rates from ACCA: September 2025 By ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants)
Reports
Sutton Trust Reports Reveals That Low Income Familes Are Facing Major Inequalities To Access SEND Support By Sutton Trust
3000 Voices: New research reveals what it’s like to grow up in South East London today By London South East Colleges (LSEC)
Off The Bench And Into Work By Employment Related Services Association (ERSA)
Voices
Government Urgently Needs to Shift its Myopic Vision and Fiscal Support of Automotive Beyond Manufacturing and R&D By Nick Connor, CEO of the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI
In The Know
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The Green Mindset Micro Collective day event is now sold out, but would you like to join us for networking the evening before on the 29th Oct in Deansgate Manchester? We have to inform the venue on numbers and food, so we are shutting down the tickets for this on the 23rd Oct. So you have a few days to grab your tickets if you can make it.
We hope you enjoy FE Soundbite this week. Stay curious, keep innovating, and let's shake up the world of FE together, and catch you next week!
By Danny O’Meara, Digital Project Manager, FE News
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