The skills system has undergone radical change over the past decade and a half. A double withdrawal of employer and government funding has left adults increasingly taking up self-directed learning. Employers are spending less per employee on training—falling from £1,960 to £1,700 between 2022 and 2024 alone. Meanwhile, the Government adult education budget has declined by a quarter in real terms between 2010 and 2024.
These numbers reflect considerable complexity. They are influenced by the type of learning that takes place. For example, when people switch jobs less frequently—as has occurred post-pandemic—companies report lower spending on training including because less induction training is required. Nonetheless, the defining shift in adult skills over the past decade and a half is clear: the system has become more individualistic, increasingly characterised by self-directed, self-funded, and self-motivated learning.
The encouraging news is that individuals have risen to the challenges presented by cuts in funding. The pandemic sparked a surge in learning engagement and increased use of digital technologies. By 2024, over half of respondents to the Learning and Work Institute’s Adult Participation in Learning survey had engaged in learning within the previous three years.
Technology remains a major enabler. Nearly all current and recent learners report using technology, with people reporting that it facilitates learning at times and in places that suit them and helps them build confidence. Technology can also enrich the learning experience, making learning more interesting and engaging. Overall, more than three-quarters of current or recent learners reported that technology aided and enhanced their learning, while 84 percent said it enabled their participation.
Unfortunately, the tech-supported pandemic surge in learning is ebbing away. In 2025, the proportion of adults reporting participation in learning in the last three years stands at 42%. This is down ten percentage points from 52% in 2024. This matters profoundly. As the UK works to restore its economy and public services after a decade of frequent shocks, it faces skills shortages, youth unemployment, and inequalities between people and places. A fully engaged skills system across all ages is essential to creating a sense of national recovery, generating new opportunities, and meeting a wider array of needs. The individualistic system cannot deliver these outcomes without strong collective action.
The recently published Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets an ambitious goal: to increase participation in higher education, high-level technical qualifications, and apprenticeships to 67 percent over time. At the core of this ambition is the publicly funded system. The White Paper presents a vision of greater coordination both at the regional level and in target sectors supporting the Industrial Strategy. It seeks to open up the formal system by creating more modular and flexible pathways for apprenticeships, higher education, and V-levels alongside T-levels and A-levels. Adults will be supported in this more open, potentially modular system through the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, which enables different qualifications from different institutions to be combined.
This represents a coherent response to the challenges of meeting skills needs and enabling economic growth. The key now is bridging the publicly funded system with the wider needs of individuals facing an uncertain future—as technology influences work in ways yet unknown—within a system that has increasingly left them to self-service their learning needs.
Vocational and learning technologies, when deployed ethically and safely, can help bridge this gap. For example, the Lifelong Learning Entitlement could become the cornerstone of a personal learning account. Linked to these accounts, a digital skills wallet could enable learners to capture all their learning through verified badges and microcredentials, securing wider recognition and providing greater clarity around skills for employers. This was a key recommendation of the RSA/Ufi VocTech Trust Digital Badging Commission.
We now have technology capable of making learning and work opportunities far more visible. Ufi VocTech Trust is working with the Institute for the Future of Work to do precisely this in the green sectors in Cornwall and Lincolnshire. That is just one example. We also support new approaches to enhancing skills development within institutions. Technologies developed by Metaverse and Totem Learning enable learners to engage in simulated workplace scenarios. Meanwhile, leading colleges and independent training providers are developing AI applications that improve teacher wellbeing, student attainment, and administrative efficiency.
With so many innovations at our disposal, the question now is how—alongside supporting the wider acquisition of essential employment and digital skills—we can use technology to help drive systemic change that provides better support, encouragement, and visibility for individuals. In short, we can move from the current system of self-service to one of continuous support for participation in learning. Even as engagement in learning recedes somewhat after the pandemic, recent years have demonstrated that the motivation and confidence to learn exists. The mission now must be to go further and respond to that urge to learn.
Anthony Painter, Director of Strategic Engagement, Ufi VocTech Trust