EDUCATION IN GREATER MANCHESTER: SECTOR PROFILE
NOVEMBER 2013
1 INTRODUCTION
Greater Manchester (GM) has around 300 schools educating children up to secondary level, ten Further Education colleges, eleven sixth form colleges, as well as over 50 work-based learning providers in the Greater Manchester Learning Provider Network, which supplies education and training for over 70,000 young people across the conurbation. It is also home to five world-class higher education institutions, of which four are universities, and one of the largest populations of students in the country. The size, strength and importance of Greater Manchester’s universities, colleges and private providers mean that education is a key service specialism for the conurbation.
The sector is a large employer of highly skilled and qualified employees, employing around 100,000 workers in total, and annually contributing £3.6bn to Greater Manchester’s economy. Higher and further education is a key enabler of economic activity and competitiveness, providing skilled individuals across the economy. It also presents significant and interesting export opportunities – around 10% Greater Manchester’s higher education students are international students. Nationally, it is estimated that UK education exports amount to around £14 billion per year.[1] Furthermore, the conurbation’s research intensive institutions also deliver new products and services that give Greater Manchester a competitive advantage, with the recent discovery of Graphene representing a global growth opportunity.
The biggest Greater Manchester employer within the sector is the University of Manchester, which employs over 9,000 people across its two campuses. Other large employers include the University of Salford, Manchester and Stockport Colleges, and the University of Bolton.
For the purpose of this report, the sector has been classified using the Office of National Statistics’ SIC code definition as follows:
· Pre-primary education (SIC code 8510)
· Primary education (SIC code 8520)
· Secondary education (SIC code 8531)
· Higher education (SIC code 8542)
· Other education (SIC code 8559)
· Educational support activities (SIC code 8560)
This report reviews data and information relating to the demand for skilled workers in the education industry. It then looks at the supply of workers using education-related qualification starts as a proxy. The report then summarises the literature on the key skills issues faced by the education industry in GM, and in the country as a whole.
2 DEMAND FOR SKILLS IN THE EDUCATION SECTOR
Business profile
There are just over 2,000 education businesses in GM. Across the ten districts, the sector generally accounts for a small percentage of total businesses at about 3%. The sector’s relative importance is highest in Oldham and lowest in Stockport and Trafford.
A fifth of GM’s businesses engaged in education are based in Manchester, which equates to just under 450 in absolute numbers. GM’s education sector is split fairly evenly across the districts, with each having around a tenth of GMs educational offer; excepting Tameside with 7% and the lowest share of the offer.
Table 1- Number of education businesses in Greater Manchester
N / % / % of local economyBolton / 236 / 10.7% / 3.4%
Bury / 159 / 7.2% / 3.3%
Manchester / 439 / 20.0% / 3.1%
Oldham / 209 / 9.5% / 4.1%
Rochdale / 151 / 6.9% / 3.1%
Salford / 213 / 9.7% / 3.5%
Stockport / 218 / 9.9% / 2.5%
Tameside / 147 / 6.7% / 3.1%
Trafford / 203 / 9.2% / 2.4%
Wigan / 225 / 10.2% / 3.2%
Greater Manchester / 2200 / 100% / 3.1%
NW* / 6970 / - / 2.7%
England and Wales* / 59760 / - / 2.6%
Source: Inter-Departmental Business Register, 2012; *publically available IDBR dataset
Breaking the sector down further, primary education makes up the largest proportion of educational establishments. The next largest is a ‘catch-all’ category of other education, which includes a diverse array of education-related activities such as sports and recreation, cultural education, and driving teachers.
Figure 1- Split of GM education businesses by sub-sector
Source: IDBR, 2012
In the location of educational establishments, characteristics of particular note are:
· Manchester has the highest proportion of GM’s Primary (15%), Secondary (17%), Higher (44%), and Other (25%) educational establishments. Higher education in particular is 33 percentage points above the closest district, namely Salford.
· Tameside scores lowest or joint lowest on a number of establishments for all of the sectors except primary and educational support activities.
· Three local authorities have no businesses engaged in educational support activities: Bury, Oldham and Rochdale.
Table 2 shows the share of the sub-sectors between businesses of different sizes. For GM’s education sector, 43% of businesses have between 10 and 49 employees, making them medium-sized businesses. Others employ 50 - 249 people, but only a very small proportion (2%) of GM education institutions have 250 employees or more.
Higher Education has substantially more large (250+) businesses (12% vs. 2%), and also more that employ fewer than ten (57% vs. 31%). Institutions engaged in ‘Other Educational Activities’ and in ‘Support Activities’ are most likely to be small, with around two-thirds for both (68% and 67%) employing fewer than ten people.
Table 2- Greater Manchester education businesses by number of employees
1-9 / 10-49 / 50-249 / 250+Pre-Primary / 38.1% / 61.0% / 1.0% / -
Primary / 7.4% / 64.2% / 28.4% / -
Secondary / 28.4% / 15.2% / 52.4% / 4.1%
Higher / 57.4% / 19.1% / 11.7% / 11.7%
Other / 67.7% / 26.7% / 5.2% / 0.4%
Support Activities / 66.7% / 20.0% / 6.7% / 6.7%
All Education / 30.5% / 43.0% / 24.7% / 1.7%
All Businesses in GM / 72.5% / 22.0% / 4.7% / 0.8%
Source: IDBR, 2012
When compared against the England and Wales education sector, educational institutions in GM are generally likely to be larger in terms of total number of employees. The North West education sector has a very similar composition to the country, meaning the comparison holds for the region.
Employment profile
Nearly 1 in every 10 employees in GM work in education. This is slightly above the respective proportion across the North West (9%), and slightly below the proportion across England and Wales (10%).
Within Greater Manchester, Manchester has by far the largest number of education staff, employing a third (32%) of GM’s education workforce. In absolute terms it has just over three times Bolton’s education workforce - its nearest competitor. Bury and Tameside have the lowest number of workers, with about 6,000 each.
In terms of number of jobs, education is most important to the Oldham economy, where 11% of its workers are employed in the sector; it is least important in Trafford with only 6% of employees working in education.
Table 3- Location of employees in the Education Sector
N / % / % of local economyBolton / 10,400 / 9.7% / 10.2%
Bury / 6,200 / 5.8% / 9.9%
Manchester / 33,800 / 31.6% / 10.9%
Oldham / 8,100 / 7.6% / 11.0%
Rochdale / 6,700 / 6.3% / 9.8%
Salford / 10,000 / 9.3% / 8.6%
Stockport / 9,900 / 9.3% / 8.2%
Tameside / 6,300 / 5.9% / 9.6%
Trafford / 7,200 / 6.7% / 5.5%
Wigan / 8,500 / 7.9% / 8.9%
Greater Manchester / 107,100 / 100.0% / 9.4%
NW / 267,500 / - / 9.0%
England and Wales / 2,314,800 / - / 9.6%
Source: Business Register and Employment Survey, 2012
When cutting the data from the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) by sub-sector and location, it can be seen that certain categories of education sector employment have clustered in certain localities.
· Manchester has the vast majority of Higher Education and Educational Support employees (76% and 77% respectively);
· Stockport has the largest proportion of pre-primary employees (18%) in Greater Manchester by role; Oldham, Tameside, Wigan and Salford have very low numbers in pre-primary employment (3% to 5%).
Primary education has the largest share of employees in the education sector - accounting for 40%, similar to its share of the number of establishments. Secondary level education employs a third (30%) of the workforce, and higher education accounts for a fifth (21%). Both of these sectors have a higher employment share than their share of the number of establishments.
Figure 2- Split of Education employment in Greater Manchester by sub-sector
Source: BRES, 2012
Compared to the education workforce across England and Wales, GM has a smaller proportion working in pre-primary (1% vs. 2%) and ‘other education (7% vs. 9%) and a higher proportion working in Higher education (21% vs. 17%).
Looking at the working patterns within the GM education sector:
· 52% of workers work full-time, compared to the GM average of 72%. Education has one of the largest proportions of part-time workers of any sector;
· The number of full-time workers in the education sector is slightly less than the North West figure of 53% and slightly above the national figure of 51%;
· In Bolton, Rochdale and Wigan the full-time employment rate is only about a third of all employees (36%, 36% and 32% respectively);
· 38% of workers in primary-level education are full-time;
· 90% of employees in Educational Support Activities are full-time.
Forecasts
Growth forecasts for the education industry in Greater Manchester are drawn from the Greater Manchester Forecasting Model (GMFM) produced by Oxford Economics on behalf of GM. The model gives an overview of the sector’s overall growth potential over the coming decade. Figures 3 and 4 below show the forecasts for employment and GVA within the education sector in GM.
Employment in GM’s education sector is predicted to be on a downward trajectory from 2012 to 2018, decreasing by about 1% per annum and levelling out near to 100,000 employees. For comparison, total employment within the UK education sector is also forecasted to fall, although slightly slower at an average of 1% per annum to 2018. However, the national sector is then expected to tend upward slightly at 0.2% per annum whilst the GM sector will stay at roughly 100,000 employees. The sector is expected to need to replace approximately 50,000 employees by 2022.
However, the amount that the education sector contributes to the GM economy (GVA) is forecast to increase. Sector GVA is expected to grow at an average growth rate of 0.4% up to 2022. Comparing 2022 with 2012, GVA in the sector will have grown by 4% in absolute terms. GVA in GM as a whole is forecast to grow by 31% over the same period.
3 THE SUPPLY OF SKILLS TO THE SECTOR
This section reviews data on the number of apprentices, further education and higher education students who live in GM and who are studying Education sector related courses. It aims to give an indication of the potential supply of skilled labour to the sector. However, when reviewing the following data the following caveats should be noted:
- A person’s subject of study is not necessarily an indicator of their future employment occupation;
- Many GM learners are studying for academic qualifications (e.g. history, geography) which could make them suitable for employment in a range of sectors – these learners are not included in the analysis;
- Across the relevant datasets up to 10% of learners have their study subject listed as unknown – these learners are not included in the analysis;
- The latest available data on 16-19 year old and Higher Education students is less current (2011/12 vs. 2012/13) than the latest available data on 19+ and apprenticeship students; and
- There is no official line on which subjects of study are directly relevant to which sectors of the economy, therefore New Economy has had to make a judgement on which subjects and apprenticeship frameworks map to which sectors – detail on this mapping exercise is provided in an appendix to this report.
Thus the figures presented are indicative of the pool of labour from which the sector could recruit.
16-19: Further education (FE) and sixth forms
During the 2011/12 academic year, there were a total of 2,306 starts in education- related subjects by GM residents in FE and VI colleges. This represents 0.9% of total starts at this level by GM residents. The vast majority of the education-related starts were in ‘Child-development and Well-being’ which had just over 2,000 starts and represented 96.9% of the education and child-related courses at Education Funding Agency (EFA) level. The number of starts in education related courses in colleges and VI colleges in 2011-12 represents a fall of 2% on the 2010/11 academic year.
The profile of GM residents beginning education-related EFA courses was predominantly female (96%); ethnically white (80%); and able-bodied (77%). GM’s Pakistani (9% of total starts) and Bangladeshi (4%) communities were well-represented in these figures.
By level, education-related starts were biased towards level 3 courses (52%), but also had significant proportions in level 2 and level 1 (25% and 19% respectively). ‘Direct Learning Support’, and ‘Teaching and Lecturing’ both had more starts at level 2 than at any other (77% and 92% respectively).
Table 4 - Number of relevant courses in FE and sixth form colleges in Greater Manchester, 2011/12
SSA Tier 2 / Entry Level / Level 1 / Level 2 / Level 3 / TOTALChild Development and Well Being / 81 / 424 / 548 / 1,183 / 2,236
Direct Learning Support / - / - / 44 / 13 / 57
Teaching and Lecturing / - / - / 12 / 1 / 13
All Education-related / 81 / 424 / 604 / 1,197 / 2,306
Source: Education Funding Agency, 2012
Starters in education-related courses were most likely to reside in Manchester (15%), or Rochdale (14%), and least likely to come from Trafford (6%). Given the high numbers, this picture holds true for Child Development and Well-being starts. However, starts in Direct Learning Support are more likely to come from Wigan (28%) and Bolton (26%), and less likely to be from Rochdale and Salford (2% for both).
The EFA data can also identify the top providers of education-related courses in GM. For education-related courses overall, there are five colleges that accounted for over half of starts in the 2011/12 academic year. These were, in order:
· The Manchester College;