On Wednesday 19th May 2021, Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann OBE delivered a keynote speech at the WorldSkillsUK International Skills Summit emphasising the need to create a world-class skills economy alongside the UK’s world-beating knowledge economy.

By setting a new level of ambition to be a world-leading skills economy, we can harness WorldSkills UK’s ability to benchmark the UK’s technical skills internationally, combined with data and insights from EY’s annual inward investment surveys, to provide new perspectives on how increasing the quality of our technical skills can help attract more inward investment for those sectors of the economy which are internationally traded and have the potential to become more productive and boost ongoing economic growth for the long-term.

To drive this agenda forward he announced a new Skills Taskforce for Global Britain – chaired by John Cridland (former DG of the CBI) and with EY as a founding member. The Taskforce will be charged with developing a Roadmap to 2030 to ensure that we have the world-class skills needed to help attract inward investment in all parts of the UK.

WorldSkills UK leverages the global WorldSkills network to benchmark the UK’s skills quality on an ongoing basis against major competitor economies, increasingly in Asia, and we are in a unique position to bring insights from this global skills benchmarking process back into the UK.

A skills economy roadmap to 2030

The principle output of the Skills Taskforce for Global Britain is the publication of a skills economy roadmap to 2030.

The Taskforce will be asked to:

• comment on and steer analysis to test the hypothesis that the lack of a supply of high quality skills is holding back key growth sectors of the economy
• identify what steps should be taken to create a world-leading skills economy in the UK over the next 10 years
• champion the skills economy roadmap.

Key areas of analysis will include:

• how do our skills compare with those competitor countries?
• what are international investors looking for in terms of skills in the UK?
• what skills do UK CEOs need in order to attract investment?
• are all parts of the UK able to attract inward investment? Is the skills pipeline holding any regions back?
• can we quantify the skills gaps in the UK? What is the opportunity cost for UK plc?

Visit the WorldSkillsUK website for more information.