SKILLS CRISIS
Without one, the report warns, the entitlement risks being perceived primarily as an individual loan.
Employees may hesitate to incur personal debt for training that mainly benefits their employer, while businesses may be reluctant to release people for courses that are not clearly tied to operational needs.
A credible arrangement combining individual finance, public funding and employer investment could better align career ambitions with business demand and local priorities.
Why local brokerage matters
Even a well-funded national system will fail if businesses cannot navigate it.
“ Growth depends on having people with the right skills in the right jobs, and that means throughout somebody’ s career.
The BCC gives particular weight to local brokerage through Local Skills Improvement Plans, which bring employers, training providers and other stakeholders together to identify workforce requirements and translate them into provision.
There are 39 LSIPs in England, 33 led by Chambers of Commerce as designated Employer Representative Bodies.
An independent evaluation found that more than 65,500 businesses engaged with LSIPs during the early stages of delivery, including many small and medium-sized enterprises participating in the skills system for the first time.
The latest LSIPs for 2026 to 2029 are aligned with Local Growth and Get Britain Working Plans and are under joint ownership with strategic authorities.
The BCC says Jobcentre Plus and local employment services should also work with Chambers and other LSIP employer representative bodies so that careers advice, employment support and training reflect local labour market needs.
But local relationships take time to build. Short and inconsistent funding cycles can make it difficult to retain engagement and maintain a trusted point of contact for employers.
The report consequently calls for long-term funding for LSIP employer representative bodies.
For individual businesses, this may be one of the report’ s most tangible arguments. A simpler national policy framework is important, but employers also need someone locally who can understand a workforce problem, connect them with an appropriate provider and help turn a recognised skills gap into action.
Start earlier
The lifelong journey must begin well before someone enters the labour market.
Alan Milburn’ s interim report concluded that protecting young people from the risk of becoming NEET“ depends on getting the right exposure to work experience and careers guidance”.
The BCC agrees, but says careers advice in schools remains inconsistent, too generic and disconnected from local opportunities.
The Gatsby benchmarks, which define a framework for high-quality careers guidance, are used by more than 4,700 schools and colleges in England.
National performance against the eight benchmarks has more than tripled since they became central to government guidance.
However, the BCC says information, advice and guidance are still not consistently prioritised or embedded across the curriculum.
Employers report that young people— and those advising them— are not sufficiently aware of local vacancies, the variety of roles within different industries or the technical and vocational routes into them.
That can narrow young people’ s choices while leaving businesses unable to reach potential recruits.
There is also an economic return from getting the system right. For 2024 / 25, the Careers and Enterprise Company estimated that careers information, advice and guidance generated a net fiscal value of £ 300m from reductions in the number of young people who were NEET alone.
The Government has announced that local government and employers in England will help shape new pathways for students from Year 10. The BCC welcomes the direction but argues that engagement should begin earlier.
It wants careers information, advice and guidance, informed by LSIP priorities, embedded in the school curriculum from the end of Key Stage 2, with technical and vocational pathways promoted alongside academic qualifications.
Rethinking work experience
Work experience is another central part of the proposed system.
It can expose young people to careers they may never have encountered through family or school, while developing the behaviours employers value when recruiting at entry level.
In the BCC’ s survey, 64 % of employers said they engaged in some form of careers activity and 46 % provided work experience.
Asked what a young person entering the workforce should focus on, 72 % selected oral communication, 67 % confidence or resilience, 62 % teamwork and 61 % problem-solving.
Written communication was selected by 48 %, digital skills by 47 % and numeracy by 37 %.
These findings underline why technical knowledge alone is insufficient. Employers can often train a recruit in job-specific tasks, but communication, confidence, teamwork and problem-solving affect how quickly someone becomes effective at work.
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