Employer Skills Survey 2024 - Scotland

Recruitment

This chapter explores the recruitment practices of employers in Scotland, including the proportion of employers who have recruited in the last 12 months, and factors that employers look for in potential candidates. It also considers the extent to which employers have recruited employees directly from education, as well as employers’ views on the preparedness for work of these education leavers. Finally, the chapter looks at employer provision of work placements, alongside reasons for not offering these types of placements.

Proportion of employers that recruited over the last 12 months

While the previous chapter examined employers’ vacancies at the time of the survey, this section looks more broadly at employers’ recruitment situation over the last 12 months. Half (50%) of employers in Scotland had recruited someone in the last 12 months. This represents a small decrease from the 52% of employers that had recruited in 2022.

As in 2022, larger employers were more likely to have recruited in the last 12 months, with 24% of employers with 2 to 4 staff having recruited, compared to 98% of those with 100 or more staff.

By sector, employers in the Health and Social Work and Education sectors were most likely to have recruited in the past year (75% and 74% respectively). Recruitment was the least common among Primary Sector and Utilities (25%) and Construction employers (34%). These sectors were also the most and least likely to have recruited in the 2022 survey.

What employers look for when recruiting

Based on a list of prompted factors that employers might consider when recruiting (see Table 3 for full list), the factor most commonly perceived as important was meta-skills, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, communication and leadership. Seven in ten (72%) employers considered this to be critical or significant when recruiting.

There were few changes in the importance employers placed on different factors when recruiting compared to 2022. The importance placed by employers on having Maths and English Nationals to a requisite level increased from 46% who felt this was of critical or significant importance in 2022, to 51% who reported this in 2024. Employers’ perspectives on the importance of all other factors remained consistent.

Certain sectors were more likely to consider particular factors as important when recruiting. For example, employers in Construction were more likely to consider having completed a relevant apprenticeship as of critical or significant importance (55% vs. 28% overall). Similarly, employers in both the Education and Business Services sectors were more likely than other employers to value candidates holding particular academic qualifications (67% and 56% respectively vs. 34% overall).

Employers considered meta-skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, communication and leadership as the most important factor they look for when recruiting.

Table 3: Importance of factors looked for in recruitment, 2024 compared to 2022 and 2021

Base: All sites in Scotland (Module C 2024, Module D 2022): (2022: 1,213; 2024: 1,220). 2021 figures taken from the Scottish EPS 2021. Base: All sites (1,000).
2021 results presented are taken from the Scottish Employer Perspectives Survey (EPS) 2021.

Recruitment directly from education

Recruiting directly from education refers to employers who recruited an employee to their first job from either school, college or university. In the 2 to 3 years preceding the interview,  37% of employers had recruited directly from education. This represents an increase compared to 2022 (32%, see Table 4).

As in 2022, larger sites were more likely than smaller sites to have recruited an education leaver, with 86% of those with 100 or more employees having done so, compared to 23% of those with 2 to 4 employees. Within each size band, there were no significant changes in the proportion of employers recruiting education leavers compared to 2022.

Employers in the Education sector were most likely to have recruited directly from education (55%), while those in the Primary Sector and Utilities were least likely (22%). These sectors were also the most and least likely to have taken on education leavers in 2022. More information by size, sector and ROA region is available in Tables 28 to 30 of the Background Tables.

Just under a quarter (23%) of employers had recruited an employee in the last 2 to 3 years from a Scottish secondary school, 14% recruited from a Scottish college, and 16% recruited from a Scottish university. Compared to 2022, the proportion of employers recruiting an education leaver increased across all 3 education settings, when the corresponding figures were 19%, 11% and 13% for schools, colleges, and universities respectively.

Employers were more likely than previous years to have recruited employees directly from school, college or university.

Table 4: Recruitment of education leavers, 2014 to 2024

Base: All sites in Scotland (Module C): (2014: 4,015; 2016: 4,009; 2019: 2,652; 2021: 1,000; 2022: 1,332; 2024: 1,220).

Employers were most likely to view university leavers as being ‘well’ or ‘very well’ prepared for work (85% of employers), followed closely by college leavers (81%). School leavers were the least likely to be seen as prepared for work (59% of employers) as shown in Table 5. There were no significant changes in employer perceptions of preparedness for work compared to 2022.

The majority of employers felt that education leavers were ‘well’ or ‘very well’ prepared for work.

Table 5: Perceived preparedness of education leavers for work, 2014 to 2024

Base: Scottish school leaver recruiters (2014: 1,101; 2016: 1,052; 2019: 779; 2021: 297; 2022: 355; 2024: 380); Scottish college leaver recruiters (2014: 754; 2016: 707; 2019: 538; 2021: 215; 2022: 246; 2024: 256); Scottish university leaver recruiters (2014: 840; 2016: 827; 2019: 491; 2021: 203; 2022: 261; 2024: 273).

Among college and university leavers, the skills that employers perceived to be lacking were similar, with the same top 3 skills for both groups: a lack of life experience (8% for university leavers, 6% for college leavers); a lack of required technical skills (4% for university leavers; 2% for college leavers); and a poor attitude (4% for university leavers, 8% for college leavers). Compared to 2022, the top 3 skills lacking remained the same for university leavers. For college leavers, the proportion mentioning each skill remained similar, although a lack of technical skills replaced a lack of soft/personal skills in the top 3 skills mentioned by employers.

In line with other education leavers, school leavers were also most likely to be perceived as lacking in life experience (19%) and as having a poor attitude (e.g. poor worth ethic, punctuality) (16%). However, unlike for other education leavers, a lack of requisite soft/personal skills featured in the top 3 skills lacking for school leavers (10%). Compared to 2022, there was no change in the top 3 skills reported as lacking for school leavers.

Employers with 100 or more employees were more likely to feel that their school leaver recruits lacked life experience (34% vs. 19% overall), and had a poor attitude (38% vs. 16% overall).

Work placements

Around a third (32%) of employers had provided any form of work placement over the last 12 months. As shown in Table 6, this is similar to the proportion that had provided work placements in 2022 (29%) but represents an increase compared to 2021, the low point of the series.

Although the proportion providing work placements has remained similar to 2022, the volume of placements has increased. In the last 12 months, employers provided around 206,000 placements, up from the approximate 165,000 placements reported in the 2022 survey but still well below the volumes reported before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.

The proportion of employers providing work placements remained stable compared to 2022, but the volume increased for the first time since 2019.

Table 6: Proportion of employers providing work placements and volume provided (2016-2024)

Base: All sites in Scotland (2016: 4,009; 2019: 2,652; 2021: 1,000; 2022 (Module C): 1,332; 2024 (Module B): 1,287).

The most common types of placements provided were for people at school (15%), followed by placements for those at college (11%) and university (10%), as shown in Table 7. Overall, this amounted to 25% of employers having provided placements to people in education, a higher proportion than in 2022, when 19% provided these types of placement. This increase was particularly driven by higher proportions of employers providing placements to those at school (15% vs. 10% in 2022), and those at college (11% vs. 7% in 2022).

Of the prompted work placement types, employers were least likely to have provided internships (4%), and placements targeted at giving work to the unemployed (4%). These placement types were also the least common types of work placement in 2022.

Among those offering placements, the average number of placements provided ranged from 2.0 per site for placements for the unemployed to 4.2 per site for work trials for potential new recruits.

Employers most commonly offered work placements for those currently in education.

Table 7: Types of placements provided in 2024

Base: All sites in Scotland (Module B) (1,287). Types of placements offered by fewer than 4% not shown.

As in 2022, likelihood of employers providing work placements in the preceding 12 months increased with employer size, ranging from 20% of those with 2 to 4 employees to 79% of those with 100 or more employees.

By sector, employers in the Education sector were by far the most likely to have provided work placements (73%), while a relatively high proportion of employers in the Health & Social Work and Arts & Other Services sectors had also done so (47% and 45% respectively). Conversely, those in the Wholesale & Retail sector were less likely to have provided work placements (22%).

Employers who had not provided any work placements in the last 12 months or engaged in work inspiration activities (e.g. careers talks, mock interviews etc.) most commonly said this was due to structural issues (66%). In particular, this included having no suitable roles (27%) and lacking the time and / or resource to manage these (21%). These were also the most common reasons in 2022, although a slightly lower proportion cited structural issues overall (71% in 2022).

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).

Around one in six (16%) employers gave reasons relating to lack of awareness. This included not being approached by anyone to offer placements (10%). A similar proportion (16%) cited reasons that indicated an active choice not to engage in offering placements or work inspiration activities, such as that their business had frozen all recruitment (7%).

More information by size and sector is available in Tables 35 to 36 of the Background Tables.