Apprenticeships recovery too slow to fill skills gap – IMI

The Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) has released data that suggests industry apprenticeship take-up is increasing, but too slowly to fill the sector’s current skills gap.

According to the IMI’s Automotive Education Report, there was a 67 per cent increase in apprenticeship starts in the full academic year 2020/21 compared to 2019/20. However, whilst this is 16 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels, apprentice starts had slowed down considerably before the pandemic.

Joanna Hollingdale, Careers and Student Membership Manager of the IMI believes this new data suggests that automotive employers are still not looking at apprentices as an important component to tackle the well-documented skills gap, despite strong evidence of the clear return on investment of apprenticeships.

“Automotive apprenticeship starts have had one of the smallest percentage yearly increases, with only travel & tourism (no increase), manufacturing (1%) and sport, leisure & recreation (52%) with smaller increases. Yet our sector has played a fundamental role throughout the pandemic – keeping Britain moving – and has a significant contribution to make in the Government’s Decarbonisation Plan.

“What particularly concerns us is the lack of take-up of the apprenticeship levy. Only 35 per cent of automotive apprenticeships were levy-funded in 2020/21 compared to all apprentices that were 61 per cent levy funded. With such a big task ahead of the sector in terms of being ready for the new automotive innovation – from ADAS and connected to zero emissions – it is crucial that employers build their pipeline of a trained workforce and the apprenticeship levy can play a vital role in supporting this task.”