Skills growth has slowed down in past decade, report says

Previously rapid increases in people’s qualifications and skill levels have stalled since the mid-2000s, a think tank has warned.

A Resolution Foundation report called Pick Up the Pace shows that the educational profile of British workers has undergone significant change in the past 25 years. Between 1996 and 1998, the most common qualification for a UK worker was no higher than GCSE level, whereas today the most common qualification is a degree.

This transformation, which has seen the proportion of 25-to-28-year-olds with degrees increase from 17 per cent in 1996-98 to 40 per cent in 2016-18, has reduced the big gender and race divides in educational attainment, the think tank says.