Beyond skills shortages: creating the conditions for a demand-led education system

Preparing for the future requires more than new qualifications; it requires new ways of thinking about professional education.

The conversation could not be more timely. Government policy is increasingly pointing towards more responsive, demand-led education systems through Skills England, local skills improvement plans, the lifelong learning entitlement and devolution.

Policy can tell us what should be aligned, but our challenge is understanding how regions create the conditions that make that alignment possible and translate best practice into wider system change. Across the sector there are remarkable examples of successful innovation and collaboration.

Employers are investing in apprenticeships, schools engagement and workforce development. Colleges and universities continue to develop flexible, employer-focused provision, while professional bodies champion lifelong learning.

Yet too many of those successes remain isolated and disconnected.

Our experience at Northumbria, working with over 550 employers through one of the UK’s largest built environment degree apprenticeship portfolios, has demonstrated both what is possible when education and industry work together – and how challenging those partnerships can be to sustain.

Building on the national Reinvention 2026 campaign – a collaboration between Ryder Architecture, Northumbria University and the University of the Built Environment – Northumbria recently convened employers, colleges, universities, professional bodies and regional partners from across the North-east to ask a different question.

Rather than revisiting the familiar discussion around skills shortages, we wanted to understand what a genuinely connected, place-based, demand-led education system might look like. One participant captured the discussion: “There’s so much going on… the problem is that some of it isn’t joined up.” 

The challenge isn’t a lack of ambition or innovation. It is creating stronger connections between regional priorities, employer demand, educational provision and professional development. It is about making opportunities, education and career pathways easier to find, navigate and connect – for employers, educators and those building careers.

Perhaps this is where the next conversation begins. We spend enormous effort designing the physical infrastructure our economy depends upon. Now we must give equal attention to the infrastructure of opportunity that develops those who design, construct and maintain it.

That infrastructure already exists. Schools, colleges, universities, employers, professional institutions and lifelong learning all have a role to play, but we need to create the conditions that allow them to work together more effectively.

This is where universities have an important civic role – not simply as providers of education, but as trusted conveners. By bringing together employers, educators, professional bodies and regional leaders, they can help develop the shared understanding, relationships and confidence needed for genuinely demand-led education systems to emerge.

That thinking is informing the development of the North East Built Environment Futures Alliance, a forum bringing together education, industry and the professions to translate regional skills intelligence into collaborative action on professional learning. Rather than creating another regional initiative, the alliance seeks to complement the local skills improvement plan and wider national reforms by connecting employers, educators and professional bodies around the future of the built environment workforce.

Although this conversation began in the North-east, its relevance is national. Perhaps the next competitive advantage for the built environment will come not from creating more opportunities, but from creating the conditions that make those opportunities easier to connect.

Dr Susan Dawson is an associate professor at Northumbria University