Following the recent election of a new government in the UK, there seems to be a shift in conversations about skills, apprenticeships and industrial strategy.

The new government have announced a new body – Skills England – will eventually replace the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, a non-departmental public body that works with employers to develop and review technical qualifications and apprenticeships. It will also eventually be tasked with determining which non-apprenticeship training courses can be funded under the new growth and skills levy, a replacement for the current apprenticeship levy.

The priority for Skills England will be to assess the future skills needs of the country and establish where the biggest gaps exist, through consultations with employers

As Erica Farmer wrote recently on TrainingZone, this is a great opportunity to create a new expectation about the skills and training which businesses will need both now and in the future.

L&D needs to be involved in a range of ways.

At a profession level, there needs to be unity across the bodies who represent the L&D business. That means the CIPD, Learning Technologies groups, learning vendor groups, and all those groups who validate the work of L&D. The movement away from academic to occupational assessment must be part of this.

At a sector level, I’m seeing comments from organisations in the construction, hospitality and transport industries but much less engagement from those who we would regard as knowledge workers. If ever there was a time to regenerate the workplace learning for knowledge workers, we need to seize it.

At an individual level, what do you know about this work? Where are you getting your information from, how valid is it, and how will it affect your work? Skills England will expect to be live by the summer of 2025 and its planned work should have been published well before then – make sure you’re planned and prepped.

It is easy to be sceptical about ideas like this, but it could be the catalyst which workplace learning in the UK has been looking for.