Latest Publications

This report explores the key enablers and barriers for SMEs in taking on more young apprentices in skilled trade roles, including green jobs. It presents new panel data on the attitudes of trades firms, incorporating insights from interviews with skilled trade workers. Additionally, it discusses policy solutions to support these businesses in effectively increasing their apprentice intake.

This report explores the barriers that people face getting into work, how those barriers might be addressed, and the potential that could be unlocked by doing so. It provides new primary research, using SMF survey data on the challenges, needs, and wants of those seeking employment.

New technologies and new challenges mean that young people today will need more than just technical skills and knowledge to be prepared for the careers of tomorrow. Baroness Morgan outlines the importance of character development in education, and considers what policymakers can do to ensure it is prioritised appropriately.

In-work poverty is not just a problem experienced by workers in the private sector. In this report, we explore the experiences of Londoners who work in the public sector and are living in poverty.

This report draws attention to the home heat workforce - the plumbers, heating and gas engineers, and installers - who will be playing an essential in delivering the UK's net zero targets. It provides much-needed insight into the challenges and barriers facing the industry, and highlights the need for policymakers to step in and address them.

This report calls attention to the scale of in-work poverty in the UK and London today, what drives it, and the impact it has. It is a part of a wider project – created in partnership with Trust for London - to develop a new benchmark that helps businesses tackle in-work poverty.

This briefing paper analyses the Government’s recent Heat and Buildings Strategy, published last month, insofar that it provides clarity, direction and support for the workers who would deliver the decarbonisation of home heat and thus play a key role in the UK’s Net Zero plans.

This is a collection of essays about general practice in England and its future. The authors offer analysis and prescriptions based on expertise developed working in fields including medicine, NHS management, economics and the Civil Service.

This paper discusses the issue of signalling in education – the possibility that some forms of education may do little directly to improve learners’ skills and effectiveness, but may be used primarily to demonstrate or ‘signal’ their pre-existing traits or ability.