Employer Skills Survey 2019: research report

The Employer Skills Survey (ESS) provides intelligence for understanding the skills challenges faced by employers, both in terms of their existing workforce and when recruiting, and how they respond to these challenges through investment in training and workforce development. Over 81,000 employers participated in the 2019 wave, however, although ESS has been a UK-level survey since 2011, employers in Scotland were not included in the 2019 survey. Another methodological change for the 2019 survey was that the question areas were broader than previous ESS, and included key elements of the Employer Perspectives Survey, which focuses on what drives decisions around recruitment and people development, as well as involvement and experiences with specific programmes such as apprenticeships. The study reports the experiences of employers at establishment level, with interviews conducted with the most senior person at each site with responsibility for human resources and workplace skills. Employers with at least two people on their payroll were in scope for the survey.