Whilst the UK is currently number six in world manufacturing rankings, at low and intermediate skills we languish in 17th and 20th places. With every leading nation focusing on skills as a future competitive weapon the challenge for the National Skills Academies is to find a way of accelerating our development to first catch up and then overtake the global competition.

In the 1980s just in time heralded the realisation that only 3% of the time a product spent in the factory was adding value. With global research highlighting that less than 3% of programmes realising their full potential (and up to 80% showing no return on investment) this same realisation is now happening in the skills arena.

To achieve the paradigm shift required to meet the Leitch targets for the manufacturing sector, the Skills Academy’s research has pinpointed a number of key leverage points that will create the value and support that our sector deserves. Our approach is called The Learning Engine. This is a world-leading, fully-integrated, systematic approach to work-based learning that customises learning, maximises economic benefit and encourages continued learning.

The Learning Engine approach pioneered by the Skills Academy solves the skills needs that truly make a difference to the economic performance of the manufacturing industry. Recognising such a major paradigm shift will take time to mature.

It is worth noting that maintaining the focus of the right product delivered by the right provider with the right process is already demonstrating significant results with typical returns, thus far being in the region of 6:1 ratio compared to the investment.