Being able to mobilise, utilise and develop a highly skilled workforce is an objective that every participant recognised as central to balancing out inequalities to advancing the region’s academic and business capabilities.
Cambridge itself has significant income disparities within a very small area. Not only does it encompass some of the most highly qualified people in the world as well as entities able to draw on huge revenues and investments but there is also significant depravation.
This has made it the most unequal city in England, with the top 6% of earners receiving 19% of the total income generated.
Upskilling local residents will help to share the city’s prosperity.
As a wealth generating area, Jane Paterson-Todd suggested that making upskilling the basis of the region’s health and deprivation policy would be the best way for the government to deliver its levelling up agenda without levelling down elsewhere.
Achieving this requires changing how schools, local authorities and businesses approach skills development.
Starting at the schools, students need to learn about the jobs, opportunities and industries in their area, and they need to be told what competencies are required to succeed in those sectors.
This will help them make informed choices when they come to any academic, vocational or career decisions.
Getting whole sectors involved in this activity, instead of single organisations, was recommended as a better way to improve the overall skills base.
Combining industry and schools in a co-ordinated manner would ensure that students can learn about the available opportunities while businesses can impart the skills they need in future employees.
As Jeanette Walker explained, this would be particularly powerful for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who should be encouraged to see places like the Cambridge Science Park as “part of their world”.
Roadblocks within schools need to be ironed out to ensure that such collaboration with industry can take place.
Even though businesses can take on a lot of the workload, schools still need to have a certain amount of available time and resources to link up with businesses along with the support of local authorities to prioritise this activity.
Louise Townsend explained that to make the education-industry collaboration as effective as possible, Morgan Sindall Construction engages with a finite number of schools rather than a taking a “scatter gun approach”.
This enables the business to develop a strong relationship over a period of time and to make sure that it is working with the schools most in need of support.
To date, approximately 30-40% of its early career intake comes from schools it has partnered with, proving that this route into the sector is effective.
By taking part in outreach activity like this, businesses will also help to improve their diversity and inclusivity levels, with Morgan Sindall Construction currently achieving 30-50% gender balance due in part to programmes like this.
Jamie Shearman pointed out that the use of technology through the various lockdowns has enabled his business to continue careers discussions with schools.
Similarly, David Cleevley noted the importance of technology to help bridge the silo’s across Cambridgeshire.
Retention of talented people needs to be central to the skills agenda, as currently many of the roundtable’s participants are witnessing a regional brain drain.
This is due to high house prices incentivising residents to move to London where the cost of living is the same and where there’s a broader choice of leisure and work options.
Stuart Websdale highlighted how the workforce problems in Cambridge includes lower skilled staff. People applying for these roles can no longer afford to live in the city and the infrastructure doesn’t exist for them to live further afield and commute.
To ensure service levels don’t drop it’s imperative that the city either incorporates affordable housing closer to its centre, improves transport links or preferably both.
Providing more residential offerings in the city centre could be achieved by using former retail space for residential purposes or creating more mixed-use developments that combine retail, office and residential facilities. In a related challenge, Stuart described how while Cambridge University’s colleges own extensive property portfolios, many of these buildings have cyclical periods where they are unoccupied, creating further complexity when assessing housing needs (eg. undergraduate student housing).
If the colleges could be more agile and increase occupancy rates then it could be an ideal way of creating desirable living space.
He also noted that to retain service staff personnel, the Colleges could consider providing accommodation within their existing estate as part of the package to attract and retain essential roles in the city.
Rethinking the colleges existing spaces could also help to make the city better suited to changing lifestyle preferences.
With many people likely to spend more time working and studying from home, it’s possible that well-connected city centre spaces are going to be in high demand. If this were to happen, the city as well as its businesses and institutions would need to be prepared, such as by improving digital connectivity to residential buildings and finding a way to deliver strong work and study experiences virtually.
