Labour Market Information

Youth Employment have an excellent guide to what Labour Market Information (LMI) is and why it can be useful.

Basically it refers to ‘any relevant information about the current state of the jobs market and it can be local, national or global.

It can include information like:

• The industries and businesses that operate in a certain location.
• The types of jobs that exist and what they involve.
• How many of those jobs there are.
• The skills that are currently or will be in high demand.
• Commute and travel to work patterns.
• Typical rates of pay.
• Career progression opportunities.’
• Recruitment methods and tools (including application portals, interviews and more).

Morrisby – our students’ first place to look.

Wrotham School students get access to Morrisby, our online careers platform, from Year 8. When they log in for the first time, they take a questionnaire about their preferences for their future lives (not just jobs), and it then personalises the platform to them. As well as getting accurate records of the careers activities that they have taken part in at school, it also gives recommendations of careers and jobs for them to research. They can then keep a record of jobs that they like, or delete ones that they don’t like. If their preferences change as they get older, they can retake the questionnaire. For each job profile, they get full Labour Market Information, including:

• a description of the job role, daily responsibilities and the skills that they would need to be successful.
• an explanation of the qualifications and/or experience that are usually required for people who want to start that job.
• details of average starting wage, working hours, and the salaries that they could gain with more experience.
• a diagram that shows the different routes into that career, including academic (school, sixth form and university), vocational (BTECs, T levels, apprenticeships), and/or work-based training.
• a projection of whether that career is likely to increase or decrease in terms of vacancies in the future. This also includes a map of the UK that shows demand by region.
• videos from people in that job, discussing what they like and what the challenges are.
• links to find out more information from professional bodies or other sources like the National Careers Service.
• recommendations of similar roles/jobs that they may not have considered.

Where do I start? How about START Kent and Medway?

A brand new resource has just been launched by START and The Education People that looks specifically at Kent employment sectors and information. It is a great starting point for young people to start looking at their local areas as places of employment, thinking about what opportunities are close to them.

How do I find that information?

• LMI for All is a fantastic resource for this. It has a short ‘skillsometer’ test that recommends jobs that students can then compare using the careerometer tool. It doesn’t save that information, but is quick and simple to use.
• icould.com gives up to date information about careers with each profile that you read, including wages, working hours, routes into the job and more. The videos are very powerful – interviews with people doing that job role, talking openly and honestly about their careers – those are embedded into Morrisby.
• SACU’s Labour Market Explore is quite clever – pick the industry on the spider-diagram, then keep clicking till you find a job. Then it will give you a profile with extra information about job opportunities etc. It’s quick and easy.

LMI in Kent and beyond

KENT Labour Market

This is the latest BRES breakdown of employment in Kent and it breaks it down into areas (updated 2023): https://www.kent.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/8180/Business-Register-and-Employment-Survey-BRES.pdf

Kent County Council publish reports by employment sector here (updated 2024): https://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-council/information-and-data/facts-and-figures-about-Kent/economy-and-employment It has full breakdowns of different sectors (e.g. construction, creative careers, transport and logistics and more), and can tell you how many jobs there are locally, even including a map of the county showing how these jobs and businesses are distributed.

NATIONAL Labour Market

Overview reports from the Office of National Statistics give statistics about rates of unemployment, including a breakdown by region in the UK: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/regionallabourmarket/previousReleases 

Useful websites about the labour market in the UK taken from the national census (last updated 2021) so that you can look at levels of education, employment and job types broken down by region or nationally: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/

Forecasts for specific job sectors can be found on Prospects – this is a site aimed towards university students looking at jobs (so perfect for students and families considering going to university), and includes job sector information that is linked to live apprenticeship vacancies as well:  https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/job-sectors

EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL Labour Market

Global labour trends can be found on the international labour organisation website (ILO): https://www.ilo.org/global/statistics-and-databases/lang–en/index.htm This site looks at a wide range key issues from employment to child labour across the world.

Reports about global issues in employment that are easy to read and designed to help shape policy around the world: http://www.oecd.org/employment/