Employer Skills Survey 2024 - Scotland
Scotland results from the UK Employer Skills Survey 2024
Correction
A correction was published on 23 January 2026 - which affected the following figures.
- Recruitment: Work placements (PDF page 33): Two figures have now changed (from 71% to 72%, and 43% to 46%) and the corrected paragraph now reads "Smaller employers were more likely to cite structural issues as the main reason for not providing work inspiration activities (72% for those with 2 to 4 employees, compared to 46% of those with 25 or more employees). "
- Apprenticeships: Future apprenticeship plans (PDF page 70/71): Three figures have now changed (from "one in seven" to "one in six", 15% to 16%, and 13% to 14%) and the corrected paragraph now reads "Around one in six employers hoped to use them to nurture talent (16%), including 7% who hoped to use them to upskill current staff, while 14% described more altruistic motivations around offering young people a chance at employment.
Amendments have been made to PDF pages 33 and 70/71 and to background tables 36 and 109. The HTML, PDF and Excel have been updated to reflect these changes. The correction is because of changes to the summary codes used for: (1) the reasons for not providing work placements or inspiration activities and (2) the reasons for not intending to start apprenticeships.
Summary
Table 1: Key findings, Scotland (2017-2024)
|
|
2017 |
2020 |
2022 |
2024 |
|
Vacancies and skill-shortage vacancies |
|
|
|
|
|
% of sites with any vacancies |
20% |
11% |
25% |
19% |
|
% of sites with any hard-to-fill vacancies |
8% |
4% |
16% |
10% |
|
% of sites with skill-shortage vacancies |
6% |
3% |
10% |
7% |
|
% of all vacancies that are skill-shortage vacancies |
24% |
21% |
31% |
27% |
|
Number of vacancies |
75,400 |
47,500 |
118,200 |
74,700 |
|
Number of skill-shortage vacancies |
17,800 |
10,100 |
36,800 |
20,000 |
|
Internal skills challenges |
|
|
|
|
|
% of sites with any staff not fully proficient |
16% |
12% |
15% |
14% |
|
Number of staff not fully proficient |
122,100 |
97,400 |
118,900 |
94,500 |
|
Number of staff not fully proficient as a % of total workforce |
5.0% |
4.0% |
4.8% |
3.8% |
|
% of sites with an upskilling requirement |
69% |
74% |
66% |
61% |
|
% of sites reporting skills under-use |
35% |
33% |
37% |
33% |
|
% of staff under-utilised |
9% |
8% |
9% |
7% |
|
Training |
|
|
|
|
|
% of sites training any staff over the last 12 months |
71% |
59% |
64% |
63% |
|
% of sites providing off-the-job training in the last 12 months |
51% |
35% |
40% |
42% |
|
% of workforce trained |
62% |
55% |
59% |
60% |
Base: All sites in Scotland (2017: 6,017; 2020: 3,497; 2022: 5,207; 2024: 5,080).
Contact
Email: FHEstatistics@gov.scot