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Employer Voice Project

It is widely accepted that we need to create a demand-led employment and skills system where employers are empowered to shape the system through their purchasing choices: ‘employer choice’.

However, ‘employer voice’ still has an important role to play. Employers use many different channels (Boards, Partnerships, Membership Organisations, etc). to feed in their views. They shape the system by articulating what they need, advising how these needs can best be met and identifying market or system failures.  In doing so these employers make a significant contribution to business competitiveness, economic development and to enabling individuals to find and progress in work.

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has undertaken a project which aims to maximise the impact of employer influence on the employment and skills system. We have undertaken a variety of research to understand, within the current system, where the employer voice is effective, what can prevent the employer voice from having impact and ultimately how employer leadership of the employment and skills system can be improved. The project has resulted in recommendations to governments, presented in a final report.

The report paper assesses current arrangements for capturing employer views and discusses how problems such as mismatched expectations between employers and government, overly complex structures, constant flux in the system and lack of impact might be addressed.
This is examined by looking at the role that employers are being asked to play, the roles and responsibilities of different structures and the relationships between them. There is also an assessment of the impact that current arrangements are able to have and what affects this.

The proposed solutions aim to create fewer and more effective employer voice structures, a simpler, more transparent system, better use of employers input and achieve greater overall impact.


The Employer Voice project team would like to thank all those individuals who contributed to the work over the last twelve months and provided invaluable insights into what’s working, and what’s not.

A number of evidence reports were also produced:

Employer Voice Policy Review
This review, conducted to provide an overview of relevant policy for the last decade, illustrates that ‘employer voice’ has remained consistently important, but that the terminology and detail has frequently changed.
Download the policy review

Employer Voice Literature Review
The Literature review provides an overview of the main themes from 50 documents that provide a perspective on the employer voice (employer leadership, employer engagement and also demand-led were used to refine the search).
Download the literature review

Case Studies: Employer influence at different spatial levels
Three ‘place based’ case studies were undertaken to provide a snapshot of the range of employer voice structures operating in a particular place and examine the relationships between them.

Download the case study: A city - Manchester

Download the case study: A nation - Wales

Employer Workshop Report
To build on the one-to-one interviews with employers undertaken across the UK a workshop was conducted with 25 employers currently involved in different kinds of employer voice structures.
Download the workshop report

Impact Review of employer-led groups in England
Sixty-five spatial employer voice structures were surveyed/interviewed to understand more about the kinds of impact that employer-led groups are able to evidence.  
Download the impact review

Nations reports
A separate report was produced for Northern Ireland and Scotland to examine the extent to which the themes emerging from UK wide research applied in individual nations.  
Download the Northern Ireland Report
Download the Scotland Report

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