Ten Percent of Adults In The UK Have ‘No Qualifications’

Official figures coming out of the United Kingdom show that 1 in 9 adults lack basic qualifications for a job in the workforce

Jeevan Vasagar, writing in the UK’s Guardian this week, relays the results of a recent study conducted by the British government regarding its national workforce.

One in nine adults has no qualifications, according to an analysis of official figures which highlights wide variations between different parts of the country.

In some parliamentary constituencies such as Glasgow East and Birmingham Hodge Hill, more than a third of people of working age have no qualifications, compared with just 2% in other areas, according to the study.

In the analysis was revealed that there are pockets of educational underachievement right next door to highly educated neighborhoods and communities.  The UK’s college lecturers’ union analyzed figures from the Office for National Statistics showing the proportions of adults aged 16-64 with no qualifications last year.  The union found sharp divides between constituencies – for example, people living in Newcastle upon Tyne Central are twice as likely to be unqualified as their neighbours in Newcastle upon Tyne North.

Of the 20 constituencies with the highest percentage of people with no qualifications, the West Midlands accounts for eight, and has four in the top 10. There is a clear east-west divide in London, the union found: of the 20 worst-performing constituencies in the capital, three-quarters are in the east.

Up in Scotland, the city of Glasgow has three constituencies ranked in the worst 10 in Britain for people lacking qualifications. In contrast, all of Edinburgh’s constituencies are well above average, with fewer than one in 10 people having no qualifications.  The college lecturers’ union warned that the figures showed Britain was divided into “the haves and the have-nots”.

Read the full column here.