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Insights
Thinking on skills, education and the widening gap between what schools produce and what work requires - from the people building LIGHTBULB.
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What employers say they need from education
Skills England’s first annual report finds employers reporting that more than a quarter of vacancies are hard to fill because of skills shortages - and identifies a structural mismatch, not a knowledge one. Education gives students clear instructions and frequent feedback; workplaces expect them to take the initiative. The practical, transferable skills that close that gap - financial literacy among them - are, in the report’s account, largely left for young people to pick up on their own.
Skills & the Workplace · Annual Skills Report 2026 · June 2026
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What the boards are saying about competencies
In July 2026 Cambridge University Press & Assessment published its most substantial revision yet of the Cambridge Life Competencies Framework, first established in 2018. Its six competency areas - creative thinking, critical thinking, learning to learn, communication, collaboration and social responsibilities - now sit alongside AI literacy, wellbeing, oracy and global citizenship. The framing matters as much as the content: AI is treated not as a separate technology topic but as an everyday skill, with students expected to question AI output, identify bias and recognise misinformation. Cambridge International rebuilt its Digital Literacy curricula on the same logic in February.
Measuring What Matters · Cambridge Life Competencies Framework · July 2026
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How AI is changing the future of work
PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer read more than a billion job advertisements across 27 countries and found the labour market splitting in two. Where AI absorbs the routine parts of a role, what remains is judgement, and employers are pricing it accordingly. The finding that matters most to a school is at the entry level: roles heavily exposed to AI are now seven times more likely to demand skills that used to be asked of senior staff, and those roles have grown 35% since 2019 while other entry-level roles fell 10%. The first job is not disappearing so much as raising its entry price - and the currency is judgement, communication and leadership.
Skills & the Workplace · Global AI Jobs Barometer 2026 · June 2026
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How the most progressive schools prepare students for life beyond school
Under the name Portrait of a Graduate, schools and districts across more than twenty US states have begun defining what a student should be able to do on leaving, in competencies rather than grades - critical thinking, communication, collaboration, adaptability - then working backwards through curriculum and assessment to build them deliberately. International schools will recognise the shape of it from the IB Learner Profile. The interesting part is where the argument has moved to: not whether these competencies matter, but whether a school can evidence them. Critics reasonably call the frameworks subjective and unmeasurable, and schools that cannot answer that charge tend to lose it.
Measuring What Matters · Portrait of a Graduate in Practice · January 2026
On the Milburn review of the UK job market
Alan Milburn’s Young People and Work diagnostic warns of a “generational fault line” between education and employment, with around a million 16–24 year olds not in education, work or training. Our Chairman responds.
Skills & the Workplace · David Knight, Chairman · 31 May 2026
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