According to a major report published last week, our failure to include soft skills training in the secondary school curriculum is a significant contributor to the record levels of worklessness among young Brits.

We take this seriously at MSB Executive. Over the years, we have provided vital soft skills support to students and early-stage career professionals. We have partnered with schools, universities, intern schemes and graduate recruitment programmes, along with charities such as GAIN (Girls Are INvestors). We will be looking at how we can make our work more scalable and impactful in this important area over the coming months.

The report contained interim findings from “Young People and Work”, a major independent review led by Alan Milburn, a former cabinet minister and now a social mobility activist. Milburn describes “… a visceral feeling in the country… that this generation is going to be a lost generation.”

What Is Happening To Young People?

People in their late 20s forced to move back in with their parents; the thankless grind of filling in dozens of unsuccessful job applications every day; vacancies being hoovered up by AI; a mental health epidemic… as a parent of young adults, I have heard it first hand from friends and contemporaries and fear for my own children as they prepare to enter the workplace. Last month the number of 16-24 year old NEETS (those not in education, employment or training) rose above a million for the first time since 2013.

What Is To Blame?

Viewing the problem as systemic, Milburn finds fault in welfare, health and education. The school system, he says, is obsessed with training students to pass exams and is failing to equip them for life as adults. Polling from employers supports this view of young people as “not work ready”.

Polling from teachers was damning, with six in ten saying that young people’s soft skills had worsened over the past five years and an even higher proportion believing that overall readiness for work had declined.

What Skills Are People Lacking?

Milburn’s advice was clear: “Schools need to equip young people with the attributes they need to succeed – communication and collaboration skills, agility and creativity.”

It is hard to disagree. Our own research at MSB Executive has been telling us that soft skills are more important than ever (and we, like Milburn, would place communication first in the list!). The businesses and individuals with the highest chance of success are those with a hybrid skillset: AI literacy complemented by great soft skills.

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In our latest newsletter, exclusive to members of the MSB Executive Club, we dived into this topic. We examined exactly which soft skills are the true differentiators when AI levels the playing field in terms of technical competitiveness. Fill in the form below to join our club and receive this and three more newsletters a year, containing exclusive tips and techniques on the crucial soft skills we are proud to specialise in.