Calendar year 2019

Employer Skills Survey

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Introduction

This publication publishes key indicators from the Employer Skills Survey 2019 as official statistics. It covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland and includes insights on: 

  • Recruitment difficulties and skills lacking from applicants
  • Skills lacking from existing employees
  • The nature and scale of training, including employers’ monetary investment

Further findings from the Employer Skills Survey can be found in the full research report of findings published in 2020 -

Employer skills survey 2019 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) (opens in a new tab)

All comparisons to 2017 are to England, Wales and Northern Ireland only (excluding Scotland, who did not take part in the 2019 survey). 

As the data in this release has previously been released in a different format, the aim of this release is to provide a practice release ahead of a fuller release of data from the Employer Skills Survey 2022. This will be released later in 2023. 

We welcome feedback on this release to our dedicated Employer Skills Survey mailbox: mailto:employer.surveys@education.gov.uk

Related information

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Methodologies

Headline facts and figures - 2019

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Vacancies

The Employer Skills Survey captures vacancy incidence, density and volume. 

  • Vacancy incidence is the proportion of establishments reporting at least one vacancy 
  • Vacancy density is vacancies as a proportion of all employment 
  • Vacancy volume is the number of vacancies

In volume terms there were 876,558 vacancies, equivalent to 3% of total employment. The total number of vacancies was made up of 811,703 vacancies in England, 24,030 vacancies in Northern Ireland and 40,826 vacancies in Wales.

The vacancy total represents a 6% decrease on the 932,064 vacancies reported in 2017 (which was equivalent to 4% of total employment). 

In the English regions, the highest number of vacancies could be found in London and the South East. 

Between 2017 and 2019 the percentage of establishments with at least one vacancy in England, Wales and Northern Ireland fell from 19.7% to 16.9%.

In 2019, 17.1% of establishments in England had at least one vacancy, compared to 14.1% in Northern Ireland and 15.4% in Wales. 

Looking at occupational groups (Standard Occupational Classification), the highest number of vacancies could be found in associate professional and technical occupations (132,154), elementary professions (126,755) and professional occupations (123,270). The lowest number of vacancies were for managers, directors and senior officials (24,265). 

There was variation in the density of vacancies by sector. The sectors with the highest density of vacancies (vacancies as a proportion of employment) in 2019 were Hotels and Restaurants (4.9%), Public Administration (4.8%), Health and Social Work (4%), and Information and Communications (3.8%). There was a marked increase in vacancy density in the Public Administration sector (from 3.6% in 2017, to 4.8% in 2019), as well as smaller increases in the Health and Social Work, Transport and Storage, and Primary Sector and Utilities sectors. Vacancy density decreased across most other sectors, with this fall particularly marked in the Arts and Other Services sector (decreasing from 4.2% in 2017 and to 2.9% in 2019). 

There was also variation in the extent of vacancies by size. The proportion of establishments reporting vacancies increased with size, while the density of vacancies was higher among the smaller establishments.

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Hard-to-fill vacancies

The Employer Skills Survey captures hard-to-fill vacancy density, incidence and volume.

  • Hard-to-fill vacancy incidence is the proportion of establishments reporting at least one hard-to-fill vacancy.
  • Hard-to-fill vacancy density is hard-to-fill vacancies as a proportion of all vacancies. 
  • Hard-to-fill vacancy volume is the number of hard-to-fill vacancies. 

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2019 there were a total of 314,315 hard-to-fill vacancies, an increase from 307,217 hard-to-fill vacancies in 2017. 

In 2019, 35.9% of vacancies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were proving hard to fill, this was a slight increase from 33% of vacancies being hard to fill in 2017. In 2019, England had a higher proportion of hard to fill vacancies (36%) than Northern Ireland (33.5%) and Wales (33.7%).

In 2019, 7.5% of establishments in England, Wales and Nothern Ireland had at least one hard-to-fill vacancy, a slight decrease from 7.9% in 2017. Establishments in Northern Ireland were less likely to have at least one hard-to-fill vacancy (6.5%) compared to England (7.6%) and Wales (7.2%).

In 2019, hard-to-fill vacancy density decreased as the size of the establishment increased. Almost half (48.9%) of vacancies were hard-to-fill in establishments with 2-4 staff, while 27.4% of vacancies were hard-to-fill in establishments with 250+ staff.

Looking at occupational groups (Standard Occupational Classification), hard-to-fill vacancy density was highest in skilled trades occupations (59.7%), process, plant and machine operatives (47.2%) and caring, leisure and other service occupations (45.2%).

When it came to sector, Health & Social Work was the sector with the highest incidence of hard-to-fill vacancies (14%). This was followed by Hotels & Restaurants (12%) and Public Administration (11.2%). The sectors with the lowest incidence of hard-to-fill vacancies were Primary Sector & Utilities (4.6%),  Construction (5.3%), Financial Services (5.5%) and Information & Communications (5.5%).

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Skill-shortage vacancies

The Employer Skills Survey captures skill-shortage vacancy density, incidence and volume. Skill-shortage vacancies are where a vacancy is proving hard to fill due to a lack of skills, experience or qualifications among applicants.

  • Skill-shortage vacancy incidence is the proportion of establishments reporting at least one skill-shortage vacancy.
  • Skill-shortage vacancy density is skill-shortage vacancies as a proportion of all vacancies. 
  • Skill-shortage vacancy volume is the number of skill-shortage vacancies. 

The proportion of establishments with skill-shortage vacancies (skill-shortage vacancy incidence) fell from 5.9% in 2017 to 5.5% in 2019 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, skill-shortage vacancy incidence fell from 4.5% to 4.2% and in Wales this fell from 6% to 5.4%. In England, the incidence of skill-shortage vacancies decreased from 5.9% to 5.5%. Despite the overall fall in vacancies there has been a small increase in the volume of skill-shortage vacancies (from 208,657 to 214,306). 

The picture is not, however, uniform geographically. While the density of skill-shortage vacancies increased in England and Northern Ireland compared with 2017, it fell in Wales. 

There were also differences in skill-shortage vacancy density by English region. The regions with the highest skill-shortage vacancy density were the East of England and the North West. The regions with the lowest skill-shortage vacancy density were London and Yorkshire and the Humber.

The extent of skill-shortage vacancies across sectors was broadly similar to 2017: Construction and Primary Sector and Utilities remained among those most affected by skill-shortage vacancies, and Public Administration and Financial Services remained among those least affected. 

There were, however, some notable changes in the density of skill-shortage vacancies within sectors, with increased densities in: 

  • Manufacturing (from 29.1% in 2017 to 35.6%); 
  • Health and Social Work (from 21.2% to 25%); 
  • Business Services (from 23.6% to 27.2%); 
  • Wholesale and Retail (from 18.5% to 22.5%); 
  • Hotels and Restaurants (from 16.6% to 20.8%). 

The sectors with the biggest decreases in skill-shortage vacancy density were Primary Sector and Utilities (from 35.7% to 30.5%), Information and Communications (from 27.6% to 22.9%), and Financial Services (from 17.4% to 13.4%). 

Skill-shortage vacancy density generally decreased as the size of the establishment increased. 33.6% of vacancies were skill-shortage vacancies in establishments with 2-4 employees, compared to 20.1% in establishments with 250+ employees.

Looking at occupational groups (Standard Occupational Classification), skill-shortage vacancy density was highest in skilled trades organisations (47.6%), followed by professional occupations (33.2%). Skill-shortage density was lowest in administrative and secretarial occupations (12.3%) and sales and customer service occupations (13.5%).

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Skills gaps

The Employer Skills Survey captures skills gap incidence, density and volume.

  • Skills gap incidence is the proportion of establishments judging at least one employee not fully proficient.
  • Skills gap density is the number of employees that were judged not fully proficient as a proportion of all employees.
  • Skills gap volume is the number of employees that were judged not fully proficient. 

In total, 1.25 million employees across England, Wales and Northern Ireland were judged to be lacking full proficiency, an increase on 1.15 million employees in 2017.

The vast majority of establishments (87%) judged all of their staff to be fully proficient at their job. The proportion who reported that at least some of their staff were judged not fully proficient remained fairly consistent over 2017 and 2019, at 12.9% in 2017 and 13.2% in 2019.

Skills gap density (the proportion of the workforce lacking full proficiency) has risen slightly, from 4.3% in 2017 to 4.5% in 2019. The slight increase in skills gap density since 2017 has been driven by an increase in skills gaps density in England. Skills gap density has fallen between 2017 and 2019 in Northern Ireland (from 3.8% to 3.3%) and Wales (from 4.7% to 4.0%), while it has risen slightly in England (from 4.3% to 4.6%).

The slight overall increase in skills gap density from 2017 to 2019 was reflected across most sectors.

The sectors with the highest and lowest skills gap densities were broadly consistent with findings in 2017. Hotels and Restaurants (6.9%) and Manufacturing (5.8%) remained the two sectors with the highest proportions of their workforces lacking full proficiency, with the skills gap density in both increasing slightly since 2017, while Education (2.8%) and Health & Social Work (3.3%) remained the sectors with the lowest skills gap densities. Two sectors saw particularly noteworthy changes in their skills gap densities. Public Administration saw a particularly large increase in skills gap density from 3.8% in 2017 to 5.3% of the workforce. In contrast, the Financial Services sector saw a marked decrease in skills gap density, falling from 5% in 2017 to 3.8% in 2019.

Although skills gap density was highest in the Hotels and Restaurants and the Manufacturing sectors, the highest number of skills gaps existed in the Business Services sector (249,838) and the Wholesale and Retail sector (217,958 skills gaps). 

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Training

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2019, 61% of establishments had arranged or paid for any training in the past 12 months. This was down from 65.6% in 2017. The highest proportion of establishments arranging training was in Wales (62.2%), with the lowest in Northern Ireland (58.8%).

Establishments had trained a total of 16.5m staff over the previous 12 months, a slight increase from the 16.4m figure in 2017. However, due to the corresponding increase in the size of the total workforce from 2017 to 2019 (4%), the proportion of the workforce trained has fallen from 62% in 2017 to 60.1% in 2019. 

 The highest proportion of employees receiving training was in Wales, where 64.8% had received training in the past 12 months. The lowest proportion of employees receiving training was in England, where 59.8% had received training in the past 12 months.

The proportion of employees who received any training in the past 12 months varied by sector. This was highest in Health and Social Work (76.1%), followed by Education (74.7%). The proportion who had received any training in the past 12 months was lowest in Manufacturing (47.6%) and Construction (47.9%),

In 2019, the average number of days training per employee in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was 3.6 days, down from 4 days in 2017. 

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Investment in training

Establishment expenditure on training and development over the previous 12 months was £42.0bn. Overall, employer investment was fairly evenly split between on- and off-the-job training (£21.1bn and £20.9bn respectively).

Training spend per employee was highest in England (£1,538), followed by Wales (£1,380) and Northern Ireland (£1,365).

Training spend per person trained was highest in England (£2,572) compared with Northern Ireland (£2,194) and Wales (£2,128). 

In terms of sector, Business Services invested the most in training (£11,400m), followed by Health and Social Work (£5,888m). The sector with the lowest investment in training was Primary Sector and Utilities (£887m).

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Help and support

Methodology

Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics.

Official statistics

These are Official Statistics and have been produced in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

This can be broadly interpreted to mean that these statistics are:

  • managed impartially and objectively in the public interest
  • meet identified user needs
  • produced according to sound methods
  • well explained and readily accessible

Find out more about the standards we follow to produce these statistics through our Standards for official statistics published by DfE guidance.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Employer Skills Survey statistics and data:

Surveys and Research Team

Email: Employer.SURVEYS@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Chris Hanley

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If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

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