The post-16 education and skills white paper

On 20 October 2025, the government published its post-16 education and skills white paper. According to the ministerial foreword, the white paper sets out the government’s plan “to educate and train the workforce of the future and give people the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.”

The white paper included reforms to the post-16 education and skills systems in England, as well as outlining a number of policies that had already been announced by the government, or that were started under the previous Conservative government. It was divided into three sections, covering the skills, further education, and higher education systems.

Skills

The white paper argued that “too many people lack the skills to get into work and to get on at work”. The government has said that the UK labour market is too over-reliant on international recruitment, and it will aim to rebalance this towards domestic workers.

In response to these skills gaps, the white paper explained how the government “will train the workforce of the future and give people the skills and knowledge they need to succeed”. It intends to review the adult essential skills offer, join up the skills and employment systems, support the development and implementation of local skills plans, and reduce the chances of young people becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) through the Youth Guarantee.

The government intends to focus public funding on improving skills provision in priority sectors. These are the eight sectors that have been identified as “growth-driving sectors” in the Industrial Strategy, and also include the construction sector, and the health and adult social care sectors.

The white paper also explained the roles of Skills England and Strategic Authorities in the skills and employment system.

Further education

The government’s white paper argued that the further education sector had been treated as “second rate” for several decades, which had contributed to declining participation in adult education and skills gaps in the economy. The government said it wanted to ensure “world-leading provision” for students, and for the sector to contribute to local and national economic growth.

Some of the measures included in the white paper were existing commitments, while others were new policy announcements. They covered four areas – teaching, curriculum and qualifications, Technical Excellence Colleges, and investment and regulation – and included:

• Providing £1.2 billion of investment per year in skills by 2028/29 tomaintain per-student funding for 16- to 19-year-olds in real terms.
• On qualification reform:
  • Replacing the current range of level 3 vocational qualifications with new “VLevel” qualifications, which will sit alongside A Levels and T Levels as the only level 3 options for 16 to 19-year-olds.
  • Introducing two pathways for post-16 students at level 2, giving them a choice between study that would lead either to work or to further study at level 3.
  • Introducing new 16-19 English and maths level 1 qualifications to prepare students at GCSE grade 2 or below before they progress to retaking their GCSE.
• Giving the Secretary of State the power to bar “unsuitable people” from management positions in further education providers.
• Improving the training and professional development offer for teachers, including introducing statutory guidance to ensure consistency and quality in initial teacher education.
• Rolling out Technical Excellence Colleges.
• Bringing further and higher education providers closer together by making the higher education regulator in England, the Office for Students, the primary regulator for all providers offering courses at level4 or above.
• Simplifying the 16-19 funding formula and ensuring high-value courses are funded sufficiently.

Next steps

The government is consulting on the design and implementation of V Level qualifications and the two new post-16 pathways at level 2. It has said it will consult on the new post-16 level 2 English and maths qualifications in 2026.

The government will also introduce legislation when parliamentary time allows to give itself powers to prevent bar “unsuitable people” from management positions in further education providers. It will also undertake a 16-19 funding formula review and hopes a revised formula will be in place for the 2027/28 academic year.

The Office for Students is consulting on proposals to disapply certain conditions of registration for further education providers delivering, or planning to deliver, higher education.

Higher education

The white paper described the higher education sector as one of the country’s “most valuable strategic assets” and “a powerful engine of economic growth and a vital component of the wider skills system”. However, it also noted the financial pressures facing the sector – including the increased cost of research, volatility in international student numbers, and sustained reductions in domestic student funding – arguing it was necessary to reset the system, to create “a more sustainable, more specialised and more efficient sector, better aligned with the needs of the economy”. This would also be a much more collaborative system, where higher education providers work together to create a “compelling regional offer”, which contributed to the skills and wider economic needs of their area, thereby driving local growth.

The white paper set out several areas in which the government will make policy interventions, including the degree to which providers specialise and collaborate, the financial sustainability of the sector, access and participation, the role of providers in contributing to economic growth, and regulation and quality. It also reiterated the government’s commitment to a target of two-thirds of young people participating in higher-level learning (academic, technical, or apprenticeships) by age 25. This includes a sub-target of at least 10% of young people going into level 4 or 5 study, including apprenticeships, by 2040. The latest data shows that 50% of 25-year-olds had participated in higher-level learning.

Measures set out in the white paper included:

• Increasing undergraduate tuition fee caps for all providers in line with forecast inflation in the 2026/27 and 2027/28 academic years and increasing them automatically for future academic years in line with inflation and conditional on a provider’s quality rating.
• Continuing to increase maintenance loans in line with forecast inflation every academic year and making care leavers automatically eligible to receive the maximum rate of maintenance loan. Introducing new targeted means-tested maintenance grants by the end of the parliament, funded by a new levy on international student fees.
• Working with the sector to address issues around the sustainability of research funding and to ensure a “more strategic distribution of research activity”across the three funding priorities:
  • protecting and promoting “curiosity-driven research”
  • supporting research and development for the delivery of government priorities, missions, and the Industrial Strategy
  • providing targeted innovation, commercialisation and scale-up support to drive growth.
• Reforming the Strategic Priorities Grant to ensure alignment of funding with the priority sectors which support the Industrial Strategy and the Plan for Change.
• Reforming the regulation of access and participation plans to facilitate a more risk-based approach and addressing participation challenges at a postgraduate level.
• Taking measures to ensure the Office for Students has the capacity and power to identify and intervene in low-quality teaching provision, especially franchised provision.

Next steps

The government has said it will legislate when parliamentary time allows to increase tuition fee caps automatically from 2028/29. It will also legislate to strengthen the Office for Students’ powers to intervene in poor-quality provision.

The government is consulting on the international student levy and will consult on making student support for undergraduate degrees conditional on the inclusion of break points so students can achieve a level 4 or 5 qualification.

Comment and reaction

Opposition parties

Responding to the government’s white paper, the Shadow Education Secretary, Laura Trott, criticised proposals for new post-16 maths and English qualifications. She also argued the tuition fee increase would fall on both students and taxpayers, and said the Conservatives had a plan to “put an end to debt-trap low-quality degrees and to double the budget for apprenticeships.”

Former Conservative higher education ministers were less critical of the government’s proposals, with there being praise for V Levels and the government’s continued commitment to the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, as well as the linking of inflationary tuition fee increases to teaching quality.

The Liberal Democrat spokesperson for universities and skills, Ian Sollom, said there was much to welcome in the white paper’s ambition, but he warned against unintended consequences, arguing that modelling has shown the international student levy “could cut up to 135,000 domestic student places over five years and reduce our economy by £2.2 billion”.

Education and skills sector

The education sector’s reaction to the government’s white paper was broadly supportive of the overall ambition to create a more unified and skills-focused system, characterised by flexible pathways designed to meet the study and employment needs of individuals throughout their lives.

The proposals for new level 3 vocational qualifications, V Levels, were welcomed by the Association of Colleges, and seen as something that could  bring greater coherence to the post-16 landscape, but only if they are designed with “clarity, consistency and collaboration at their core.”

The higher education sector welcomed the white paper as a necessary reset and a recognition of universities as a national asset. The commitment to raise undergraduate tuition fees in line with inflation was appreciated in light of growing concerns about the financial sustainability of some providers, as was the emphasis on greater collaboration. However, the sector expressed opposition to the proposed international student levy.

Think tanks

Analysis of the white paper by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) commended its scope but said the focus on individual policy measures meant the proposals did not always add up to a coherent overall strategy. The IFS also said:

• The government’s goal for two-thirds of young people in higher-level learning would be stronger if there was a clear deadline, since current trends suggest it would be achieved by the late 2030s without any interventions.
• If the freezing of the household income thresholds that determine the amount of loan students are eligible for continues, some students could borrow 15% less in real terms by 2029/30, significantly affecting living-cost support for middle-income families.
• Reintroducing maintenance grants for low-income students in “priority subjects” would mean only around 10% of students would be eligible, costing about £500 million compared to the £2.6 billion in today’s prices that would be needed to restore the former system in place until 2016/17.
• The government should be clear on the economic rationale for the international student levy, which would constitute a tax on the UK’s exports.

The Social Market Foundation (SMF), an independent public policy think tank, described V Levels as a “potentially promising step forwards”, while the  Sutton Trust, which is a social mobility charity that also publishes research and policy analysis, criticised the frozen parental income thresholds for maintenance loans and the decision to offer maintenance grants only to those studying “priority subjects”.