Our programme of research
- Why don’t some employers train their staff, despite the fact that training can help some businesses survive and increase productivity?
- What do UK employees tell us about the barriers they face to workplace learning and how can policy effectively focus on the obstacles?
- Which recruitment and workforce development services do employers consider most valuable?
- How have other nations conceptualised and implemented High Performance Working and how does that help advance growth?
Our research and evaluation programme seeks to answer these questions and more, providing robust high quality intelligence that draws on good practice, partnership working, the work of leading experts and the most innovative thinking.
The UK Commission has an important role to play in providing effective strategic leadership, rooted firmly in a strong social partnership between governments, employers, trades unions and the voluntary sector. This leadership is informed by research and evaluation activity that is relevant, salient and of the highest quality, drawing on national and international evidence to provide future and action orientated analysis and to support the UK Commission’s investment decisions.
Our research programme spans five key areas:
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Labour Market Intelligence (LMI) - find out more about the UK Commission’s statistics and surveys. You can access our major overarching analysis, as well as much of the data which underpins this analysis, such as our employers’ surveys and labour market projections.
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Progress into and on in employment - offers an evidence base on the journey of individuals as they enter and advance in employment. This section covers the acquisition of low, intermediate and high level skills.
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Raising ambition - seeks to provide a narrative broadly from the employer's perspective on ambition for and barriers to higher skills and the policy levers most likely to effect change. Here, for example, you can find our Value of Skills, High Performance Working and Collective Measures projects.
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Methodological developments
- these projects explore new ways of thinking about how we define and measure different aspects of skills development.
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Knowledge exchange - We are committed to sharing, building and reflecting on our knowledge. In this section you can access our Intelligence e-briefing, catch-up on videos from our 2010 skills convention and be challenged on your views with Praxis thinkpieces.
View the full list of our research evidence reports
View the full list of our research briefings
Please download the 2012 UKCES Research Digest (PDF, 640 Kb)
