Regional Industrial Workforce Strategy
Working as part of a multi‑partner consortium, Ben played a senior role in developing a region‑focused Industrial Workforce Strategy.
As a core example of our Strategic Workforce Planning offer, this project addressed a central challenge facing UK public bodies: how to plan for the right workforce, with the right skills, over the medium to long term, in a system shaped by fragmented responsibilities, funding cycles and rapidly changing labour market conditions.
The work combined extensive engagement with public‑ and private‑sector stakeholders from local authorities, employer bodies, training providers to industry partners. Reflecting national policy priorities (Industrial Strategy, Defence development), the strategy reviewed and aligned regional, sub‑regional and local plans across skills, employment and economic growth, helping partners see the value of moving beyond siloed interventions towards a more coordinated, employer‑informed workforce planning framework.
The strategy recognised the distinct public‑sector context: long lead times for skills development, statutory responsibilities for service delivery, and the growing role of Skills England and Local Skills Improvement Plans in shaping workforce demand and training pipelines. The result was a place‑based framework capable of informing investment decisions, skills provision and support long‑term industrial development across the region.