By Katie Gallagher OBE
One of the things that struck me listening to Alan Milburn's interim review on young people and work was his acknowledgement that employers, particularly SMEs, will need more support if they are expected to play a bigger role in helping young people transition into employment.
At almost exactly the same time, the government announced further changes to T Level industry placements, relaxing some of the original requirements after years of challenges securing enough employer participation. The move follows a significant decline in placements, with FE Week reporting that the number of students completing an industry placement fell by around a third between 2022-23 and 2023-24.
To me, those two things are closely connected, for years, the conversation around skills and early careers has focused heavily on supply. More qualifications, more bootcamps, more people trained, more pathways into industry.
Those things matter. But creating talent is only half the equation. The other half is making sure employers have the capacity, confidence and support to absorb that talent.
Over the last year, Manchester Digital has been running TConnect, a pilot supported by the Gatsby Foundation and Greater Manchester Combined Authority that aimed to make it easier for employers to engage with T Level placements. Like most pilots, it raised as many questions as it answered but what it did provide was a useful insight into the reality facing both employers and young people.
One thing became clear very quickly. The challenge is rarely convincing employers that workplace experience matters, most employers already believe that. The challenge is creating opportunities in a way that works alongside the realities of running a business. We saw employers commit and then withdraw because priorities changed. New projects landed, teams became stretched, client deadlines took precedence. None of that reflected a lack of interest. It reflected the reality of operating in a fast-moving sector.
We also saw huge differences in student readiness. Some students thrived when given responsibility and exposure to a professional environment. Others needed much more support before they were ready to make the most of the opportunity. In fact, we eventually stopped taking first-year students and focused on those in their second year because it proved too difficult to get many first-years workplace-ready within the constraints of the programme. Second-year students were consistently more successful, suggesting that confidence and maturity are just as important as technical knowledge.
What perhaps surprised us most was how much of the work sat in the middle. Recruiting employers, supporting students, managing expectations, helping shape projects. Resolving issues when they arose and keeping communication flowing between colleges, students and businesses. None of that is particularly visible, but it often determines whether a placement succeeds or falls apart.
This is where I think there is an important lesson for policymakers. Milburn is right to highlight the importance of work experience, employer engagement and local solutions. He is also right to recognise that SMEs will need additional support if they are going to play a bigger role.
Our experience would suggest that the barrier is often not willingness, but bandwidth. Most tech businesses do not have dedicated early careers teams. They do not have large HR departments. Every hour spent supervising a placement is an hour that is not being spent on a customer, a product or a project. That does not mean they should not engage. It means we need to think more carefully about how we support them to do so.
One of the reasons the recent T Level changes are so interesting is that they reflect an acceptance that flexibility is needed if employer participation is going to increase. Our experience suggests that flexibility alone is unlikely to be enough.
If we want more employers to participate, particularly SMEs, we also need to recognise the value of the organisations that sit between education and industry, helping to remove friction, provide pastoral support and make participation easier for everyone involved.
TConnect was never a silver bullet. We certainly have not solved the challenge of work experience or early careers but what it did show is that a relatively small amount of coordination and support can make a meaningful difference.
We learned a huge amount through the pilot. We saw students grow in confidence, employers discover talent they might not otherwise have met and providers build stronger links with industry. We also saw how fragile the system can be when employers are under pressure and support structures are limited.
Unfortunately, despite the positive outcomes, there is currently no route for us to continue this work. As a small not-for-profit organisation, we cannot absorb the resource requirement indefinitely, that feels like a missed opportunity. Not because TConnect is the answer, but because it demonstrated that there are practical ways of making employer engagement easier.
As the debate around young people and work continues, perhaps the question is not simply how we create more talent.
It is how we create more capacity within businesses to develop it.
