Real-Life Success Stories: The Impact of Workforce Foresighting Cycles

The Workforce Foresighting Hub, an Innovate UK initiative, was established in 2022. Workforce foresighting is a systemic approach to planning ahead and anticipating future skills and capability needs associated with new technologies addressing national challenges and market opportunities. Through collaboration with the Innovate UK Catapult Network, the WF Hub has completed several cycles and published a number of reports.

As a result, we are now seeing collaboration between the Catapults, Government, Industry and the Education sector to take these findings and drive the discussion and actions needed to build and adapt training provision, which will support the development of a future skilled workforce required to adopt emerging technology and support future industrial growth.

The process, which is data led, involves experts identifying technology clusters that can overcome challenges or capitalise on opportunities. Technologies are then assessed to determine how they will affect future job roles and identify gaps in the current provision of skills and capabilities. This process is known as the Workforce Foresighting Cycle. All topics undertaken align with Innovate UK’s impact domains: Net Zero, Healthy Living and Agriculture, and Digital Technology.

Following the reports being published, the resulting action plans have prioritised areas of skills development to be addressed. The Catapults continue to develop and implement their action plans to address these future skills capability requirements.  We are already beginning to see impact in sectors such as Floating Offshore Wind, RNA therapeutics, and in-orbit satellite applications, among others.

Here, we highlight two case studies that start to showcase the impact from the Workforce Foresighting Hub programme and demonstrate the opportunity going forward.

Case Study: ORE Catapult – Skills for Floating Offshore Wind

Challenge: The renewables sector faces pressing skills challenges. ORE Catapult were part of one of the first Workforce Foresighting Hub cycles. They looked into preparing the workforce for future challenges in the offshore floating wind sector across two cycles. 

Impact:

• New Future Occupational Profiles defined
• Embedding findings and workforce foresighting into sector growth plans
• New apprenticeship programmes and HV competency standards under development
• High voltage career pathway discussions around degree apprenticeships

Case Study: Digital Catapult – Advanced Media Production

Challenge: The rapid development of technological advancement has led to huge growth in the creative industries, and this is only set to increase. Digital Catapult were another early adopter of Workforce Foresighting Hub cycles to help plan future skills requirements.

Impact:

• New Future Occupational Profiles defined
• Findings used to inform design and thinking of education programmes in development
• Identify and reskill those with transferable skills from other sectors to fill high-demand roles
• Regional and national engagement with educators, awarding bodies, and employers

How the Hub can help

The Workforce Foresighting Hub plays a pivotal role in aligning future skills with innovation, ensuring that UK industries are well-prepared to meet the challenges of tomorrow. By promoting collaboration, insight and skills evaluation, the Hub ensures industry stays at the forefront of an ever-evolving technological landscape.

You can also consult our Podcast series for further inspiring stories and insights on how we can collectively address the skills challenge and drive innovation forward.