Skilled Workers
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria Skills England will use to identify priority occupations and future skills needs in sectors such as aviation engineering.
Answered by Andrew Western
Skills England published its Annual Skills Report and Sector Skills Needs Assessment on 1 June 2026. This is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skills-england-annual-skills-report-and-sectoral-skills-needs-assessments-2026. The reports feature skills assessments of the Advanced Manufacturing sector and Defence sector, both of which include aerospace engineers as a priority occupation.
Methods used to select priority occupations and project future demand were selected by sponsoring government departments, considering current demand data, economy-wide projections, strategic priorities and expert judgement from the sector. For Defence the sponsoring department is the Ministry of Defence and for Advanced manufacturing it is the Department of Business and Trade.
Skills England also assess skills needs through the UK Standard Skills Classification, identifying the occupational and core skills areas relevant to priority occupations at a sectoral and economy-wide level.
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