Skills forward look: annex

Encouragingly, since the last survey in 2022, skills gaps in the existing workforce have fallen and are now at their lowest recorded levels for this survey series. Additionally, in line with labour market trends, the number of vacancies that employers describe as difficult to fill was less than half the number in 2022. The percentage of vacancies that can’t be filled due to a lack of skills (SSV density) has also fallen from an all-time high in 2022 but was still higher than in the 2011 to 2017 period. The construction sector and skilled trade occupations continued to have the highest SSV density. Therefore, at the UK and Wales level, while there are signs of improvement in some areas, the overall recruitment and skills landscape both remain notably different from that of the earlier ESS iterations.

The survey data shows that in the UK that there has been a marked reduction in employer engagement with and investment in training. Employers remain notably less likely to provide any form of training for their employees and are less likely to have plans to do so. While the proportion of the workforce trained had reverted to previous levels, the training days received per trainee are still markedly lower compared with the early 2010s. Additionally, employer financial investment in training has continued to decline, with the overall figure and investment per employee decreasing in real terms. 

Although overall employer investment in training fell in Wales, the nation had the highest proportion of employees receiving training in the past year and provided more training days per trainee than any other UK nation. The proportion of employers offering apprenticeships remained unchanged, with larger employers still much more likely to offer them. The intention for employers to offer apprenticeships fell across all nations, with the largest decline in Wales.

Only a small proportion of employers reported using AI, and most sites that do not use it had no plans to adopt it. 

• Across the UK, 17% of employers reported a vacancy in 2024. This is a decrease from 2022 figures (23%) and marked the lowest proportion of employers with vacancies since 2013 (15%). 
• The incidence of vacancies decreased across all nations from 2022, including Wales (from 22% in 2022 to 17% in 2024). The overall number of vacancies in Wales decreased from 58,900 in 2022 to 35,700 in 2024.
• Skill-shortage vacancies (SSV) are a subset of hard-to-fill vacancies that employers struggle to fill due to a lack of skills, qualifications or experience among applicants. In the UK, 6% of employers had a SSV at the time of interview, which was a decrease from 2022 levels (10%) and a return to 2017 levels (6%).
• The percentage of sites with SSVs was very similar across all nations including for Wales (6%) and fell for all nations between 2022 and 2024.
• SSVs as a proportion of the total number of vacancies (SSV density) was 27%, a notable decrease from 2022 (36%) but remained higher than in the 2011 to 2017 period (when it was in the 16% to 23% range). SSV density was highest in Construction (45% in 2024, though down from 52% in 2022). 
• SSV density was similar across nations, although highest in Wales (28%) despite a reduction from 35% in 2022. In Wales, the sectors with the highest reported SSV density were Manufacturing (54%) and Construction (53%).

• Employers were most likely to cite relevant work experience as an important factor when looking for new recruits (61% of employers cited this).
• A third (33%) of employers had recruited an education leaver in the last 2 to 3 years (i.e. new entrants to the labour market), an increase from 30% in 2022. 
• Wales was the least likely of the UK nations to recruit an education leaver (31%) and the only UK nation that did not see an increase in the proportion of employers recruiting any type of education leaver between 2022 and 2024.

• Considering internal skills challenges faced by employers, 12% of employers reported that at least one of their employees was not fully proficient at their job, a decrease compared with 2022 (15%). The proportion of employees lacking full proficiency (skills gap density) was 4.0% in 2024, a decrease from 5.7% in 2022. The 2024 figures were the lowest recorded in the ESS series since its inception.
• The internal skills challenge in Wales was in-line with the UK-level picture. Around one in eight employers (12%) reported a skills gap, down from 14% in 2022. Skills gap density was 3.9%, down from 4.1% in 2022 and the lowest out of the UK nations. Both figures in 2024 represented the lowest recorded in the ESS series for Wales.
• In Wales, the highest skills gap density was in Financial Services (6.8%), Hotels and Restaurants (6.4%) and Arts and Other Services (6.4%). 
• In Wales, respondents reported 9.8% of their employees as being both over-qualified and over-skilled for their role, higher than any other nation with the UK average at 7.2%. 

• A third of employers (33%) had offered some form of work placement in the last 12 months, a greater proportion than in 2022 (30%) but lower than in 2019 (35%). 
• Wales saw the largest increase in the prevalence of work placements across the UK nations since 2022 (33% up from 28% in 2022), but this figure was still below 2019 (36%). Wales was the least likely nation to offer placements for those in education (24%), but the most likely to offer placements for adults (13%) in 2024.
• Among employers that had not offered work placements or other work experience related activities in the last 12 months, the most common reason given for not doing so was not having any suitable roles for this purpose (28%).

• Almost three fifths (59%) of UK employers reported that they had arranged or funded training for their employees in the last 12 months. This represented a small decrease from 2022 (60%) and continued a downward trend since the 2011 to 2017 period (65% to 66%).
• The pattern was similar in Wales with 60% of employers indicating they had arranged or funded training, in line with 2022 but slightly down from 2017 and 2019.
• The total number of training days provided by UK employers increased in 2024 (111 million from 108 million) (though this remained lower than the volumes seen in the 2011 to 2017 period), as did the proportion of the workforce who received training in the previous 12 months (63%, up from 60% in 2022). However, employees who were trained received fewer training days on average, decreasing from 6.0 days per annum per trainee in 2022 to 5.7 days in 2024, the lowest figure in the ESS series.
• Wales was the UK nation with the highest proportion of employees who had received training in the previous 12 months (64%, a slight increase from 63% in 2022), equating to 800,000 employees. Employers in Wales also provided the most training days per trainee (6.6 days), although this figure was lower than during the 2011 to 2015 period.

• Total employer expenditure in 2024 was £53.0 billion, a 10% real terms decrease when compared with 2022, when the figure stood at £59.0 billion. This equated to a training spend of £2,710 per trainee and £1,700 per employee in 2024 (down from £3,250 and £1,960 respectively in 2022). These 2024 figures represented the lowest real terms amounts seen in the ESS series to date.
• Training spend decreased in all nations, including in Wales where it was £2.4 billion, a 6% decrease from the 2022 figure of £2.5 billion. 
• Despite this overall reduction, compared to the other UK nations, training spend per trainee in Wales was reported at £2,880, second behind Scotland, and £1,850 per employee, the highest of the UK nations.            

• Around 1 in 5 employers (19%) offered apprenticeships at the time of survey, including 11% that currently had apprentices working for them and a further 8% that offered them despite not currently having any. These proportions mirrored those seen in 2022.
• The proportion of employers that offered apprenticeships in Wales (16%) was similar to Scotland and Northern Ireland (16% and 17%) but less than England (20%)
• Larger employers were most likely to offer apprenticeships: two thirds (66%) of employers with 100 or more employees had or offered apprenticeships compared with just 9% of those with 2 to 4 employees. Employers in the Education (47%) and Health and Social Work (29%) sectors were most likely to offer apprenticeships, while Primary Sector and Utilities employers were the least likely to (10%). 
• Around 3 in 10 employers (31%) planned to offer apprenticeships in the future, a lower proportion than in 2022 (38%). This intention had decreased across all nations compared with 2022, with the largest reduction seen in Wales (24% down from 35% in 2022). 

• Around three fifths (59%) of employers believed they would need to upskill their workforce in the next 12 months. This represented a decrease compared with both 2022 (62%) and 2017 (63%). This pattern was mirrored in Wales.
• In terms of sector, Public Administration employers were most likely to have any upskilling need (90%). This could be linked to employers in Public Administration reporting the lowest spend per trainee and per employee in 2024. 
• The most common reasons given by employers for needing to upskill their employees were the introduction of new technologies and new legislative or regulatory requirements (both 37%).

• Around 1 in 7 employers (14%) said their site used AI. Using AI was a recent development for most, with around two thirds (67%) of those using AI having started to use it in the last 12 months. 
• There were differences by nation, with employers in England (15%) more likely to use AI compared to Wales (12%), Scotland (11%), and Northern Ireland (8%).
• AI usage was also most common among larger sites: 24% of employers with 100 or more employees using it compared to 14% of employers with fewer than 25 employees. Employers in the Information and Communications sector (43%) were more than twice as likely than any other sector to say they used AI. 
• Most employers using AI (86%) planned to embed it into their processes and operations over the next 3 years, with 29% planning to do so ‘to a great extent’, rising to 40% among employers with 100 or more employees. 
• Among those sites not using AI, just 9% were planning to adopt it; 76% had no plans to adopt it and 15% were unsure about their AI plans.