Drawn from interviews with employers, ESOL providers and apprenticeship providers, this guide has been designed to raise awareness of ways in which ESOL learners can benefit from and progress to employment as an apprentice. It also illustrates how a focus on meeting ESOL learners’ needs in the workplace can benefit employers and training providers.

This guide has been developed by Learning and Work Institute as part of a wider project, undertaken at the request of the Department for Education (DfE), to understand and address barriers to apprenticeships for those with English for Speakers of Other Language (ESOL) needs.

The project aimed to:

  • Establish how and to what extent providers facilitate the transition from ESOL learning to apprenticeships
  • Identify current barriers to progression to apprenticeships for learners with ESOL needs
  • Identify ways in which policy and practice could be improved, to enable more people with ESOL needs to access apprenticeships
  • Identify any current effective practice in supporting people with ESOL needs to progress into apprenticeships.

8 September 2026

Adult Skills Fund spending on English and Maths, 2016–24

This briefing explores the trends in investment in adult (19+) English and maths provision in England in the first five years of Adult Skills Fund devolution between 2019/20 and 2023/24.

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7 September 2026

UK must make training the ‘go-to’ response to skills needs, or risk holding back growth, new report warns

The Government’s plans to get the economy growing risk falling short unless it takes action to reverse sharp falls in the training employees get at work, new analysis warns.

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7 September 2026

Understanding employer investment in skills

This is the third and final report of our project funded by the Nuffield Foundation looking at employer investment in skills, and how employees are responding to the need to upskill and retrain in a transitioning economy.

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18 August 2026

Labour market dashboard

Every month, Learning and Work Institute produces detailed and timely analysis of the latest labour market statistics from ONS. Explore our interactive charts.

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12 August 2026

Small employers, big opportunities: apprenticeships for young people

Olly Newton, Executive Director at Edge Foundation, reflects on key messages from the Edge Foundation-sponsored workshop at Learning and Work Institute’s Employment and Skills Convention, exploring how small employers and local partners can support more young people into apprenticeships.

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29 June 2026

What enables the effective design, delivery and evaluation of local work and health programmes?

This report presents findings from an evidence review on what enables the effective design, delivery and evaluation of local health and work programmes.

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29 June 2026

Scoping report: Labour Market Evidence Programme

This scoping report as part of the Labour Market Evidence programme provides a summary of the work undertaken by IES and L&W between October 2025 and March 2026 including user consultation. It summarises the evidence needs of local policy makers and sets out how these needs can be addressed.

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9 June 2026

Final report: Evaluation of the JobsPlus Pilot

This evaluation of JobsPlus builds on the interim findings published in September 2025 to provide evidence on whether the model can be adapted to the UK context and effectively implemented to improve employment outcomes.  

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29 May 2026

Multiply adult numeracy randomised controlled trials

Alongside Ipsos and other partners, L&W has conducted Randomised Control Trials to evaluate the effectiveness of existing and new interventions to improving adult numeracy.

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