East Anglia needs sustained investment in technical education, stronger employer participation, and better alignment between skills, transport, and housing strategies to boost productivity.
A skills mismatch in East Anglia risks stalling the region’s economic growth and scarring a generation of young workers.
This is according to a new report from the Bennett School of Public Policy – From school to work: Tackling skills mismatch and building pathways for young people in East Anglia – which identifies a deepening divide between the region’s high-tech innovation hubs and the wider region.
While cities like Cambridge and Norwich continue to lead in global innovation, the report’s authors – Owen Garling and Burcu Sevde Selvi – find that significant barriers, including declining apprenticeship numbers, transport limitations, and a lack of focus on vital soft skills, are preventing local talent from accessing high-value jobs.
The report’s release coincides with the launch of National Productivity Week 2026 (April 27 – May 1), a UK-wide initiative dedicated to exploring how productivity can drive better outcomes for people, firms, and places.
Key findings of the report highlight:
- The dual economy trap: high-growth sectors like clean energy, digital technology, and life sciences are facing acute recruitment crises, while young people in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Peterborough struggle with lower educational progression and limited technical routes at Levels 3–5.
- Declining opportunities: despite a high demand for labour, apprenticeship opportunities for under-19s have seen a substantial decline, leaving a gap in the school-to-work pipeline.
- Infrastructure as a skills barrier: research shows that place-based issues, such as a lack of affordable housing and poor rural transport, act as a ‘productivity tax’ on young people, limiting their ability to reach employment hubs.
- The mismatch penalty: vertical and horizontal mismatches can lead to labour market scarring, where early-career struggles lead to lower long-term earnings and reduced economic resilience.
The report echoes the core themes of this year’s National Productivity Week, emphasising that productivity is not just about output, but about creating a more inclusive economy.
“Productivity is the engine of prosperity, but the gears are misaligned in East Anglia,” said Burcu Sevde Selvi, Research Assistant at the Bennett School of Public Policy, and lead author of the report. ” We see a paradox: firms are desperate for talent while young people struggle to access the most productive sectors. To achieve the goals of National Productivity Week – better jobs and stronger communities – we must bridge this gap with a long-term strategy that treats skills, housing, and transport as a single challenge.”
The report calls for a shift away from short-term funding solutions toward a sustained regional strategy. Key recommendations include:
- Take a long-term view: moving beyond short-term funding and election cycles to give technical education the stable, long-term pathway it needs to deliver.
- SME empowerment: providing small businesses with brokerage support to help them navigate the complex skills landscape and offer more work placements.
- Integrated mobility: ensuring regional transport strategies are specifically designed to connect cold spots of high unemployment to hot spots of industrial growth.
“As we celebrate National Productivity Week, we are reminded that businesses are crucial to solving the UK’s productivity problems,” added Ms Selvi. “By tackling skills mismatch in East Anglia, we aren’t just helping firms grow; we are ensuring that every young person in the region has a stake in our future prosperity.”
Read the report: From school to work: tackling skills mismatch and building pathways for young people in East Anglia
Read the blog: Beyond the innovation core: solving East Anglia’s skills puzzle
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
