Not so long ago, I wrote on Slugger about the uncomfortable truth that in Northern Ireland, many graduates don’t actually earn more than their non-graduate peers. The assertion came about after a random conversation with a business associate over a pint! It jars with the mantra that “education is the passport to prosperity,” but it seems to be the lived reality.
UCAS numbers keep rising. Parents boast about children “getting away” to study. Politicians still count success by how many go to university. Yet employers across NI cry out for people in health and social care, construction, ICT and engineering. Vacancies sit unfilled, projects stall, productivity suffers. We have more graduates than ever — and still a skills shortage.
After a further political development this week I started to think more about my, somewhat controversial, pronouncement and wonder about how we are actually failing our young people whilst adding to a growing crisis with a lack of skills in our workforce.
Stormont’s Economy Minister, Dr Caoimhe Archibald, has been blunt: Northern Ireland is facing “a quite scary” shortage of key skilled workers. She has pointed to our demographic crunch, high levels of economic inactivity, and tighter immigration rules. Her Department has launched a new Skills Barometer and an Apprenticeship Action Plan — both of which underline the scale of the gap we face.
Nationally, graduates still tend to pull ahead. By age 31, they earn on average about a third more than non-graduates, and over a lifetime the graduate premium remains real. But zoom into Northern Ireland and the shine fades. Five years after graduation, graduates living here have a median income of just £28,800 — among the lowest returns anywhere in the UK. If you’re a young graduate choosing between staying here or moving away, that figure matters.
We’ve also built a culture where the degree route is the default and anything else is second-best. Meanwhile, the roles we can’t fill — technicians, skilled trades, advanced manufacturing — sit in the “missing middle.” The Minister’s own Skills Barometer points to demand in precisely these areas, but we’re not producing or retaining the people to fill them.
Because my family background is in construction, the building trade, I make no apologies for veering towards that particular industry when I discuss apprenticeships. After the crash of 2008, my, now long retired father, stated many times that we were going to see a shortage of tradespeople in the future. We are now here people! “Back to the future”. Have you tried to get a plumber or an electrician or a joiner recently!?
Ask building contractors why they’ve stopped taking on apprentices and you’ll hear the same thing: the Apprenticeship Levy doesn’t work for them.
“Employers involved in construction activity in NI and working for 27 or more weeks in the tax year must register with CITB NI.
Construction industry employers working in Northern Ireland are required by law to register and complete an annual Levy Return form issued by the Construction Industry Training Board Northern Ireland (CITB NI).
This Levy is payable by construction employers with a wage bill over £80,000. Employers who are not eligible to pay the levy because their wage bill is below this level must still complete the annual Levy Return.
The money raised through Levy helps to share the investment across the industry to help maintain a solid skills base, meeting the immediate needs of individual customers, and provides a long-term benefit to the whole industry by helping avoid skills shortages.”
That’s the official line! A grant is available for each apprentice an employer takes on.
In practice, levy funds are often used to upskill existing staff in larger firms, not to bring in new apprentices. Smaller employers — the backbone of our economy — rarely see the benefit. Builders who once took on two or three apprentices now take none, because the system penalises them for doing the right thing. Rises in minimum wage, national insurance contributions and paying for an employee to spend a day a week at “tech” just doesn’t add up!
The result is fewer opportunities for young people who might thrive in a trade, and fewer new entrants to the very sectors screaming about labour shortages.
So who loses out? Young people, over-qualified but under-employed, or emigrating for better pay. Employers, unable to staff projects — including those in construction, retrofit and healthcare. The wider economy, which remains stuck in low productivity. Communities, as the “brain drain” accelerates. If even the Economy Minister describes the shortage as “quite scary,” we should treat this as systemic failure, not just a passing mismatch.
What needs to change is straightforward: fix the levy so NI firms can actually take on apprentices; back the new Apprenticeship Action Plan with measurable targets;
Please, please end the UCAS-or-bust culture;
Align higher education places with the workforce demand flagged by the Skills Barometer; and make staying in NI pay through targeted graduate retention incentives.
We don’t just have a “skills shortage.” We have a skills system that rewards the wrong things: counting degrees instead of capabilities, taxing employers for apprenticeships and then starving SMEs of support, training young people for elsewhere and wondering why they don’t return.
The Minister is right: the shortage is scary. Now we need reform to match the rhetoric — so the next time a builder wants to take on an apprentice in Ballymena or Belfast, the system makes it the easiest decision they’ll make all year.
Eugene Reid is a keen observer of all things business and politics. A former elected representative who has had a career working across the private, public and voluntary sectors! Bringing a unique perspective from a diverse and varied background.
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