Covid-19 has brought into sharp focus the inequalities and challenges facing the next generation. So I’m grateful to our partners who, over the past 12 months, have worked with us to push forward our plans to improve accessibility to our skills development programmes to support more young people, from all walks of life, reach their potential.

It has been a year since we published The Social Innovation Partnership diagnostic research into our skills competitions programmes, which involved 700 of our stakeholders.

And while the results of its work made for uncomfortable reading, clearly spelling out that we were not doing enough to support the development of young people from all backgrounds, it did provide us with the blueprint to work with partners in three key ways to start to address the series of challenges identified.

Long read: Meet WorldSkills UK’s CEO, Neil Bentley-Gockmann

Background: 90% white, 67% male: The WorldSkills diversity crisis

WorldSkills UK: £1.5m Centre of Excellence unveiled

Firstly, we have been enhancing the use of data to improve analysis and decision-making for more inclusive outcomes. This was critical to our work in launching the Centre of Excellence, in partnership with NCFE. Integrated inclusion criteria; black, Asian and/or minority ethnic (BAME) student population; and regional diversity cold spots were key requirements for the selection process and helped us to identify colleges to be part of the first year of the programme. We will use data insights again to inform the engagement and selection programme for the second year of the centre. This targeted approach to providing high-quality training was recognised in the recent Skills for Jobs White Paper and it is ensuring that we are providing much-needed support to over 40,000 young people, from all backgrounds, to achieve higher standards.

WorldSkills UK: Supporting colleges in improving diversity

Secondly, to shape our competition-based training and assessment programmes, we have started working in partnership with colleges like Oldham College, Dudley College of Technology and South Staffordshire College to gain a deeper understanding of barriers to engagement with our programmes. This means we will work with students, apprentices, staff and network of employers to support colleges’ own diversity engagement activities through the wider embedding of our training methods into their curriculum innovation. 

Thirdly, we have been prioritising role modelling to engage a wider range of young people. That’s why we have set ourselves a target of having at least a fifth of the images we use in our communications to be of young people from diverse backgrounds to ensure we are sending out a clear message that all young people are welcome. Richard Hutchins, from The Institute of the Motor Industry, and a winner at this year’s WorldSkills UK Diversity and Inclusion Heroes Awards, has used inclusive marketing to generate fantastic results.  The use of 50/50 male to female imagery to advertise the automotive skills competitions has resulted in an increase of 32 per cent in female participation, as well as the first-ever female finalist in heavy vehicle technology.

The importance of role models

I was also struck by the words of Haider Ali, a management accountancy apprentice at Rolls-Royce plc, when he found out he had won the rising star category in our Diversity and Inclusion Heroes Awards: “I think it is really important that young people have access to role models, so they know whatever space they want to enter, there is room for them.” 

That, in a nutshell, is why role modelling is so important - you can’t be what you can’t see. And that’s why we are sharing more of the career success stories of our alumni network role models to inspire more young people to get involved in our activities.

We are ambitious to keep pushing for change, and we know that we can’t do it alone. That is why we have recently established our Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group.  With leaders from partners like Toyota UK, Coca-Cola European Partners, OneFile, Holts Group, Natspec, Barking & Dagenham College, North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College, Loughborough College and our alumni, the group will be a critical friend to support and challenge us to drive change.

The make-up of the group is also inclusive, including 50 per cent women, over a quarter who are BAME, members who identify as LGBT+ and have different faiths, and representation of learners with learning difficulties and disabilities, which means we can take a holistic but targeted approach with a bias to action to help drive further partnership working across the sector.

We know there is still much to do to engage more young people from diverse backgrounds. We are driven by the knowledge that raising the bar and widening the gate are not mutually exclusive. The foundations we have put in place over the past 12 months provide us with a strong platform to continue to work with our partners to help ensure that more young people get access to the benefits of our skills programmes and training to achieve higher standards to help them succeed in work and life.

Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann is the chief executive of WorldSkills UK