Rishi Sunak to invest £3bn in skills and education to help workers get better-paid jobs

Katy Clifton
·2 min read
Rishi Sunak is to deliver the budget next week (Stefan Rousseau/PA) (PA Wire)
Rishi Sunak is to deliver the budget next week (Stefan Rousseau/PA) (PA Wire)
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Rishi Sunak will announce £3 billion of investment into skills and education in the Budget to help workers get better-paid jobs.

The chancellor said the cash injection, which will be given to post-16 education and adults later in life, aims to give people “the skills they need to earn more and get on in life”.

In what the government is calling a “skills revolution”, Mr Sunak will announce the number of skills boot camps in areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and nuclear will be quadrupled.

While £1.6 billion will provide up to 100,000 16- to 19-year-olds studying for T-levels, technical-based qualifications, with additional classroom hours.

Some 24,000 traineeships will also be created in the package, expected to be part of measures announced at next week’s Budget and spending review.

Mr Sunak said: “Our future economic success depends not just on the education we give to our children but the lifelong learning we offer to adults.

“This £3 billion skills revolution builds on our plan for jobs and will spread opportunity across the UK by transforming post-16 education, giving people the skills they need to earn more and get on in life.”

Existing colleges in England are to be allocated £830 million with extra funding for new equipment and facilities.

The National Skills Fund will be boosted with a total investment of £550 million to quadruple the number of places on the skills boot camps, which are available for adults of any age.

Mr Sunak will also announce the expansion of free Level 3 courses for adults, which are equivalent to A-levels, in subjects like maths, chemistry and biology. Apprenticeship funding will also increase by £170 million to £2.7 billion in 2024/25.

Meanwhile, the Telegraph reported that Mr Sunak is set to unveil a multi-million-pound boost for the NHS next week, which will include funds for a digital overhaul after Sajid Javid revealed one in 10 hospital trusts still use “paper-based systems”.

The newspaper reported he is expected to confirm more than £4 billion of funding for new hospitals and hospital upgrades overall.