Labour market and skills plans that deliver on local needs
PolicyDepartment develops, refreshes and reviews local skills plans and labour market strategies, including statutory Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs). We bring together the employer perspective, labour market intelligence and a deep understanding of official requirements, so a plan acts on the priorities that actually matter and stands up when it reaches its scrutiny stage.
Skills Plan Readiness Diagnostic
TRY IT - ONE MINUTE
The Skills Plan Readiness Diagnostic is a free, instant self-assessment tool that checks how robust and “approval-ready” your local skills plan is.
Each response is weighted according to its importance, ensuring the final score reflects substantive quality rather than simple box-ticking. The tool immediately generates a readiness score, highlights the three areas most in need of strengthening, and defines what “good” looks like for each, benchmarked against the standards applied across our labour market and skills work. Your score and a high-level synthesis appear on screen straight away, with the option to enter an email to unlock a fuller breakdown of your three priority areas, each clearly mapped against best practice, enabling you to take actionable insights to your team or provider partners.
The components of a credible skills plan for places
01
Strategic focus and alignment
The starting point should be the priority areas for development or support set out in local economic strategies - usually sectors, clusters, beneficiary groups, and employment sites
03
Meaningful engagement with the employer perspective
Proactive engagement designed to reach a representative range of employers, using a variety of tailored approaches, with real depth in the priority sectors and not just the loudest voices
05
Demographics and replacement demand
Counting the jobs an ageing or churning workforce must replace (usually the large majority of recruitment activity) not just the net expansion of workforces in fast-growing sectors
07
Cross-cutting skills
Analysis of skills needs and drivers of demand that cut across both occupations and sectors - these typically include digital, green and foundational skills
09
Implementation and monitoring
Shared ownership between partners, clear roles, and a way to keep the plan live and measured across the cycle
02
Strong evidence base and labour market intelligence
Building an evidence-based picture of the labour market in aggregate, drilling down in detail for the skills and occupations in demand and hard to fill across strategic priorities
04
Analysis of labour demand from the occupational perspective
Recognising that employees and qualifications organise around occupations found across the economy (e.g. engineers, finance professionals): sector definitions are usually less meaningful to them
06
Provision and supply mapping
Mapping current education and training provision against the needs of roles that are in demand and hard to fill, and skills roadmaps where these exist for industries and professions
08
Prioritised actions
Focused, specific, owned changes to the local skills system, with a clear line from evidence to issue to action, organised around the plan's timeline (Year 1, Year 2, etc)
WHAT WE DO
The labour market plans we work on
We develop, refresh and review a range of strategies that seek to improve labour market outcomes across local economies
Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs)
Employer-led plans setting the priority changes a local skills system needs
Labour Market and Employment Strategies
A place's plan to grow good jobs and connect residents to them
Sector Skills Needs Assessments
What skills industries actually need, now and as demand shifts
Provision and Supply Reviews
Mapping further, technical, and higher education and training provision against real demand
Readiness Reviews and Plan Refreshes
An honest health-check that shows where an existing plan needs strengthening
HOW WE WORK
Three steps no theatre
Scope and align first, run evidence and employer voice in parallel, then turn it into a focused set of priorities and actions
Step 01
Scope and strategic alignment
Agree the priority sectors, the statutory requirements and how the plan aligns with the Local Growth Plan and related strategies.
Step 02
Evidence and engagement, in parallel
Labour market intelligence and structured employer engagement run together, each shaping the other as the picture builds.
Step 03
Synthesis and sign-off
A concise set of changes to the skills system, each owned and specific, with a plan to keep it live and measured.
FEATURED COMMISSION
A statutory Local Skills Improvement Plan, delivered end to end
CLIENT
Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce
YEAR
2026
SERVICE AREA
Labour Market and Local Skills Improvement Plans
As the designated Employer Representative Body, Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce jointly with the Combined Authority, (CPCA) needed to refresh the area's statutory Local Skills Improvement Plan for 2026-2029 to a tight, government-set timetable. PolicyDepartment ran the evidence and drafting end to end: refreshing the labour market evidence base, designing and analysing the 2026 employer skills survey, producing deep-dive assessments across the six priority sectors, mapping education and training provision against demand, and supporting stakeholder engagement, before drafting the statutory plan and its Technical Evidence Review to the required national format. The plan and its evidence review were delivered on time for submission to Skills England, giving the Chamber and its partners a credible, employer-led basis for skills delivery across the region.
QUESTIONS CLIENTS ASK