Our Theme

Bridging The Gap: Skills & Learning for Our Future Workforce

Milton Keynes’ location, combined with its excellent transport links and a comparatively low cost-of-living, make it an attractive place for businesses to start-up, scale-up, and relocate. As a result, we have one of the fastest growing economies in the UK, with technology, finance, logistics, and professional services, being its fundamental pillars. 

However, the dual effects of (1) the lack of an undergraduate university (which results in too many of our young people being lost to faraway university towns), and (2) poor investment in universal education for all our young people, combine to create a skills gap in Milton Keynes that has become a stubborn problem that businesses could do more to help solve. 

This challenge is referenced in the Council’s City Plan 2025, that sets out the blueprint for growth to a population of over 400,000. Objective 12 states an ambition to ‘…enable better access to education, skills and training, and economic opportunities to strengthen our regional and national economic role, with Central Milton Keynes at the heart of a diverse and resilient economy’.  

Whilst some businesses do engage with schools, colleges, and universities, to support the growth of a diverse and skilled workforce, many more do not. Inevitably, this results in our community missing chances to maximise the development of all our talent, due to a lack of universal opportunity. Ironically, a significant proportion of local businesses report difficulties filling vacancies due to a lack of skilled candidates. Further, of those young people that are qualified, many are deemed to have little-to-no ‘work readiness’, lack experience, and have poor awareness of basic workplace behaviours. This issue is prevalent in most of our more important sectors but is also reflected nationally. 

The UK has some of the best reading rates in the world, yet 24% of vacancies in England are due to skills shortages, according to the 2019 Employer Skills Survey; this highlights a significant skills gap in the labour market. Further, a report by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport found that around 17% of adults lacked basic digital skills. 

Beyond new entrants to the workplace, the ferocious rate of evolution of industries such as life sciences, technology, and sustainability, mean that there is also an urgent need to equip existing workforces with the updated skills required to keep us at the leading edge of development. Change within these sectors cannot be driven forward, without a skilled workforce to manage it.  We need to ensure that Milton Keynes retains its position as one of the UK’s most productive and innovative cities, and a strong, skilled talent pool will support this. 

The Council’s City Plan goes on to reference this issue, highlighting ‘…the availability of skilled workers can affect economic growth. Businesses in Milton Keynes frequently raise the lack of skills as one of their largest challenges, with 45% of businesses in the SEMLEP Business Survey 2023 reporting difficulty recruiting the right skills’. It goes on to declare ‘…we cannot sit still. Our skills providers need to continue to work with Business to meet needs.’ 

As a business community, we have our part to play. We cannot, and should not, take a backwards step and then be surprised if the alumni of our educational system do not match our precise requirements. We must learn from each other about what approaches work, then in partnership with our educational institutions, ensure not only that they reach all sections of our community, but also that the graduates of our educational sector have the skills that we require and are work ready. 

This can only happen if we work with our educational institutions to tell them what we need in the short-, medium-, and long-term; and, vitally, if we are prepared to support our schools, colleges, and training institutions, by offering work experience and internship opportunities.  

As is so often the case, if anywhere can, Milton Keynes can! Not only do we have a wonderfully vibrant business community, but our own College bucks the national trend in meeting employer needs, with 93% of the employers who work with the College rating their services as good or outstanding. Additionally, we are blessed to have both the Open University and MK:U, whose syllabus has been developed in partnership with business to focus predominantly on the precise skills that our economy requires; and finally, we have the  South Central Institute of Technology, one of just twenty-one nationally, which like MK:U, delivers technology skills in partnership with employers.  

If Milton Keynes is to continue to be an attractive destination for highly skilled jobs, and compete within the wider regional south, then it must go further. Having a residential, undergraduate university, would really help, but that is unlikely to happen imminently. Notwithstanding however, collectively, we can solve the skills gap, but it will take hard work, cooperation, and serious commitment; but the rewards of getting it right will be huge.  

By choosing this theme for our awards, we hope to help drive and energise this conversation and play our part in helping to not only talk-the-talk but walk-the-walk. 

If you would like to become a sponsor of our awards, we have a limited number of packages left.