UK Employer Skills Survey 2022 – Scotland Report

Employer Skills Survey 2022 – Scotland

Employer Characteristics

Small employers with 2 to 4 employees make up 50% of establishments and employ 8% of the workforce.

The largest sectors of the Scottish economy are Business Services (20% of all establishments) and Wholesale and Retail (19%)

Vacancies and Skill-shortage vacancies

25% of employers had at least one vacancy at the time of the survey…

…and 10% had at least one skill-shortage vacancy.

31% of all vacancies were skill-shortage vacancies – that is, they were hard to fill due to a lack of skills, knowledge or experience among applicants.

This was having an impact on 97% of affected employers – most commonly increasing workload for other staff.

Internal Skills Challenge

15% of employers had a skills gap within their workforce, and 5% of all employees had gap(s) in their skills.

37% of employers reported skill under-use.

66% of employers anticipated a need to upskill their staff in the coming year.

Training and Workforce Development

64% of employers had provided any training to staff in the previous year:

• 54% on the job
• 40% off the job
• Overall, 59% of employees had received training, which equated to 1,400,000 trained.

Apprenticeships

Overall, 16% of employers currently had apprentices or offered apprenticeships.

HPW

7% were classed as “High Performance Working employers”.