
Table of contents
- 1. What are the benefits of lifelong learning? skip to link
- 2. Who is taking part in adult learning? skip to link
- 3. How much does the government spend on adult education? skip to link
- 4. How are further education loans changing? skip to link
- 5. What is the Labour government doing about lifelong learning? skip to link
- 5.1 Devolve adult skills funding to combined authorities skip to link
- 5.2 Establish ‘Skills England’ and reform the apprenticeships levy skip to link
- 5.3 Guarantee training, an apprenticeship, or help to find work to all 18 to 21-year-olds skip to link
- 5.4 Transform further education colleges into specialist technical excellence colleges skip to link
- 6. Views on the government’s plans for skills skip to link
- 7. Read more skip to link
Approximate read time: 15 minutes
On 6 February 2025 the House of Lords will debate the following motion:
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour) to move that this House takes note of the social, economic and personal value of lifelong learning.
Lifelong learning can include courses, qualifications, work-related professional development activities, or more personal learning related to interests, hobbies and leisure.[1]
This briefing does not focus on higher education (degree-level learning). For more on higher education, read:
- House of Lords Library, ‘Future of the university sector: Report from Universities UK’, 7 November 2024; and ‘Higher education funding’, 23 August 2024
- House of Commons Library, ‘Higher education in the UK: Systems, policy approaches, and challenges’, 15 July 2024
1. What are the benefits of lifelong learning?
Research from the Learning and Work Institute has demonstrated that lifelong learning can have numerous benefits, including improvements in life satisfaction and mental health.[2]
Social Mobility Commission data has indicated that learning can also lead to better employment prospects.[3] Employment rates and hourly wages tend to be higher for people with higher levels of education.
In addition, a 2012 academic literature review on the benefits of lifelong learning pointed to evidence that lifelong learning in later years “helps to keep the mind sharp and improve memory”.[4] Learners also benefitted from developing broader perspectives and keeping up with technologies.
The review found evidence of benefits to confidence and social skills. Adult education provider the Workers’ Educational Association has also emphasised that taking classes can counter loneliness, build a friendship circle and community, and give people a sense of pride and achievement.[5]
2. Who is taking part in adult learning?
In the 2023/24 academic year, there were 1,830,650 learners aged 19 or over in local authority further education or skills training in England.[6] The most popular courses focused on English or maths skills.[7] Public funding is available for some learners to do essential skills courses in English, maths and digital skills. More information about entitlements is in section three of this briefing.
The number of learners in the 2023/24 academic year was 0.7% higher than in 2022/23, but lower than in the early 2010s, when the numbers of learners exceeded 3 million.[8]
As well as courses overseen by local authorities, organisations like the University of the Third Age (U3A) run courses on a range of topics in exchange for a membership fee.[9] While there is no minimum age, the courses are aimed at people who are no longer in full-time employment or raising a family. Across the UK there are over 1,000 U3A groups with around 400,000 members total.
Research by the Learning and Work Institute, which “adopts a deliberately broad definition of learning”, found that 52% of UK adults had taken part in learning in the last three years.[10] This is the highest rate since the survey began in 1996, which the institute said reflects “a rise in self-directed learning, including online, and often for personal or leisure reasons”.
However, the institute noted “persistent disparities”, with older people much less likely to participate in learning.[11] There are also disparities in social demographics, with people from the “highest social grade” most likely to participate in learning.
The institute noted that time, financial pressures and “feeling too old” are the most commonly reported barriers affecting people’s participation in learning.[12]
In 2017, the Government Office for Science (GOS) assessed what affected people’s likelihood to participate in learning.[13] It stated that factors which impact the likelihood of participation are often shaped at an early age and can include:
- family influence
- community attitude to learning
- experience and achievement at school
- workplace expectations
The GOS said: “The more learning a person does early in their life, the more likely they are to keep learning. And people with the weakest skills are the least likely to join in”.[14]
However, the GOS noted that people can be more open to learning at key moments of transition, like changing jobs, preparing for parenting, or experiencing a major life event like divorce or bereavement.[15]
In some areas, councils are proposing closures of adult education centres.[16] Councils have said that contributing factors include funding reductions and requirements for funding to be spent on a narrower offer, focused on work skills. Additionally, councils have noted learner numbers falling and some learners preferring to take online courses.
3. How much does the government spend on adult education?
Public spending on adult skills is summarised in figure 1. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has assessed that adult skills funding (formerly the adult education budget) has had “substantial real-terms reductions since the early 2000s”:[17]
In 2023–24, spending stood at approximately £4.3bn, which means it has fallen by a third compared to its inflation-adjusted high of £6.3bn in 2003–04. The decline has been particularly steep in classroom-based learning, where expenditure has fallen by two-thirds, from £5.1bn in the early 2000s to £1.7bn in 2023–24.[18]
The significant decline in classroom-based learning partly reflects a shift towards practical and vocational learning, including apprenticeships.
Figure 1. Public spending on adult skills (£bn, adjusted to 2024/25 prices)

Advanced learner loans are currently available for individuals aged 19 or above to undertake certain qualifications at levels three to six at an approved provider in England. A list of the qualifications is available on the Department for Education website.[19]
Public spending on adult education also includes:[20]
- the statutory entitlement for students aged 19 to 23 to study for a first qualification at level two and/or level three (for example a GCSE, intermediate-level apprenticeship, or an A level)
- the statutory entitlement for students aged 19 and over to study for an English and/or maths qualification up to and including level two (GCSE or equivalent)
- the statutory entitlement for adults with low digital skills to study entry level and level one digital skills qualifications[21]
- the ‘Free courses for jobs’ scheme for students aged 19 and over to do a level three qualification (equivalent to an A level or advanced technical certificate) in certain subjects, if they are earning below £25,000 or are unemployed[22]
There are also additional funding streams for specific adult education programmes including ‘Skills bootcamps’ and numeracy programme ‘Multiply’.[23] Further information on adult skills funding, including calculations for the 2024/25 academic year, is available from the UK government website.[24]
The further education sector also receives capital funding for things like building repairs, facilities and equipment. The 2021 autumn budget and spending review committed £2.8bn of capital investment across the further education sector between 2022/23 and 2024/25 across all sites in England.[25]
4. How are further education loans changing?
For courses beginning January 2027 onwards, the lifelong learning entitlement will replace higher education student finance loans and advanced learner loans.[26] This is intended to create a single funding system for post-18 education. The government has said that the loan will be available for full courses at levels four to six (such as degrees, technical qualifications, and designated distance-learning and online courses) as well as modules of high-value technical courses at levels four to five. Eligible learners will be able to access:
- a tuition fee loan, with new learners able to access up to the full entitlement of £38,140: equal to four years of study based on academic year 2025/26 fee rates
- a maintenance loan to cover living costs for courses with in-person attendance
The policy resulted from the previous government’s review of post-18 education and funding, and its subsequent consultation on what was then referred to as the ‘lifelong loan entitlement’.[27] The policy is now provided for by the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Act 2023.
5. What is the Labour government doing about lifelong learning?
The Labour Party manifesto 2024 committed to reforming further and higher education.[28] The party promised “a comprehensive strategy for post-16 education”.[29] The party said it would:[30]
- devolve adult skills funding to combined authorities
- establish ‘Skills England’ and reform the apprenticeships levy
- guarantee training, an apprenticeship, or help to find work to all 18 to 21-year-olds
- “transform” further education colleges into specialist technical excellence colleges
Progress on each area is summarised in the following sections.
5.1 Devolve adult skills funding to combined authorities
On 16 December 2024, the government published ‘The English devolution white paper’. The paper stated that non-apprenticeship adult skills funding will be devolved to mayoral authorities, which will make plans based on local skills needs.[31]
The government had written to local leaders who did not have a devolution deal in July 2024, inviting them to come forward with proposals for combined mayoral authorities.[32] In September 2024, the government said it had devolved and delegated approximately 60% of the adult skills fund to England’s nine mayoral combined authorities.[33] The authorities can now “decide how they wish to prioritise funding”.
For the rest of England, the Department for Education currently retains responsibility. The government has indicated its priorities for spending and said it “will not fund provision where the primary or sole intent of the learning is for leisure”.[34] Its main goal, it said, is “to support learners into employment and to progress to further learning”. The government added that funds could support wider outcomes “including improving health and wellbeing, equipping parents and carers to support their child’s learning and developing stronger and more integrated communities”.
5.2 Establish ‘Skills England’ and reform the apprenticeships levy
Skills England was launched in July 2024 in shadow form.[35] The body is intended to assess skills gaps and demand across the UK and be responsible for identifying the training for which a new growth and skill levy would be available.[36] This new levy would replace the existing apprenticeship levy.
To deliver its role, Skills England will need to take on several of the functions currently undertaken by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL] was introduced in the House of Lords in October 2024 to provide for this. Lords report stage is planned for 5 February 2025.[37] For more information about the bill, read: House of Lords Library, ‘Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]: HL Bill 38 of 2024–25’ (17 October 2024).
At the end of September 2024 Skills England published two outputs: its first report examining the UK market’s skills needs and existing barriers, and an occupation in demand index ranking the demand for each occupation across the UK labour market.[38]
5.3 Guarantee training, an apprenticeship, or help to find work to all 18 to 21-year-olds
In November 2024, the government published the ‘Get Britain working’ white paper. The paper sets out a ‘youth guarantee’, so that “every young person has a real chance of either earning or learning”.[39] The government’s aims include:[40]
- working with mayoral authorities and the Welsh Government to create eight place-based “trailblazers” to test plans to reduce economic inactivity, with £125mn of funding in 2025/26 “to shape a strong, joined-up and local work, health and skills offer”
- supporting all areas in England to develop local ‘Get Britain working plans’
- creating new foundation and shorter apprenticeship opportunities
- establishing new partnerships for placements, including with sports, arts and cultural organisations like the Premier League, Channel 4 and the Royal Shakespeare Company
The government said the proposed reforms “will take time”.[41] One of the next steps is to establish a ‘youth guarantee advisory panel’ to “ensure young people’s voices are central to the design of a youth guarantee”.
5.4 Transform further education colleges into specialist technical excellence colleges
Labour has not yet made an announcement in government related to technical excellence colleges, but has repeated its intention to pursue the policy.[42]
In October 2023, before coming into office, the Labour Party set out how it intended the colleges to work:
‘Technical excellence colleges’ would be based on a number of criteria including additional investment from local businesses and improved links to local universities. Bids will be assessed by Skills England to make sure local skills plans meet national strategic priorities to grow the economy and reskill people in the jobs of the future.[43]
In 2019, under the May Conservative government, it was announced that 12 ‘institutes of technology’ would be set up.[44] With £170mn of government investment, the institutes were described as “unique collaborations between universities, further education colleges, and leading employers”. A second wave of funding was awarded in 2022.[45] At the time of writing, there are no details on how technical excellence colleges might differ.
6. Views on the government’s plans for skills
In the House of Commons on 16 December 2024, Danny Kruger, shadow minister for work and pensions, expressed the Conservative Party’s view on the government’s ‘Get Britain working’ plans.[46] He said that it was “a very familiar set of policies” that constituted “a rehash of existing support, and a bit of money with no strings attached”. He criticised the government for not strengthening the conditionality of benefits.
Liz Kendall, secretary of state for work and pensions, responded that Labour’s programme would be a “different approach” and that the new opportunities would come with “a requirement to take them up”.[47]
In a debate on 12 December 2024, Olly Glover (Liberal Democrat MP for Didcot and Wantage) said his party welcomed the government’s proposed steps to improve access to skills, training and education, but urged the government to do more for people with additional needs.[48]
7. Read more
- House of Commons Library, ‘Further education funding in England’, 17 January 2025
- FE Week, ‘Beyond the budget headlines, cuts loom for adult education’, 1 November 2024; and ‘Neglecting over-50s in the training world must change: Here’s how we do it’, 31 October 2024
Cover image by Freepik.
References
- Government Office for Science, ‘Future of skills and lifelong learning’, 27 November 2017. Return to text
- Learning and Work Institute, ‘Healthy, wealthy and wise: The impact of adult learning across the UK’, 1 October 2017. Return to text
- Social Mobility Commission, ‘Labour market value of higher and further education qualifications: A summary report’, 9 February 2023. Return to text
- Marjan Laal, ‘Benefits of lifelong learning’, Procedia: Social and Behavioural Sciences, 2012, vol 46, pp 4268–72. Return to text
- Workers’ Educational Association, ‘The benefits of adult education’, 6 June 2024. Return to text
- Department for Education, ‘Further education and skills’, 28 November 2024. Return to text
- Department for Education, ‘Education and training subjects by learner age, level and subject area’, accessed 24 January 2025. Return to text
- Department for Education, ‘Further education and skills’, 28 November 2024; and Institute for Fiscal Studies, ‘Adult education: The past, present and future’, June 2022, p 7. Return to text
- U3A, ‘About us’, accessed 24 January 2025. Return to text
- Learning and Work Institute, ‘Adult participation in learning survey 2024’, 4 November 2024. The definition of learning includes independent practice, study or reading, as well as taught education, training or coaching. Return to text
- Learning and Work Institute, ‘Persistent inequalities in lifelong learning: What can we learn from the adult participation in learning survey 2024?’, 4 November 2024. Return to text
- Learning and Work Institute, ‘Adult participation in learning survey 2024’, November 2024, pp 7 and 38. Return to text
- Government Office for Science, ‘If lifelong learning is so good, why don’t more adults join in?’, 21 March 2017. Return to text
- As above. Return to text
- As above. Return to text
- FE Week, ‘Fears of adult education desert amid cost-cut plans’, 6 December 2024. Return to text
- Institute for Fiscal Studies, ‘Annual report on education spending in England: 2024/25’, 8 January 2025. Return to text
- As above. Return to text
- Department for Education ‘List of qualifications approved for funding: Overview’, accessed 27 January 2025. Return to text
- As above. Return to text
- House of Commons, ‘Written question: Digital technology: Training (11468)’, 4 November 2024. Return to text
- Department for Education, ‘Free courses for jobs’, 21 August 2024. Return to text
- Department for Education ‘Skills bootcamps’, accessed 29 January 2025; and ‘Everything you need to know about the new Multiply programme’, 27 October 2021. Return to text
- Education and Skills Funding Agency, ‘19+ funding allocations’, 2 September 2024. Return to text
- HM Treasury, ‘Autumn budget and spending review 2021’, 27 October 2021. Return to text
- Department for Education, ‘Lifelong learning entitlement overview’, 4 November 2024. Return to text
- House of Commons Library, ‘The post-18 education and funding review: Government conclusion’, 29 April 2022; and Department for Education, ‘Lifelong loan entitlement’, 24 February 2022. Return to text
- Labour Party, ‘Labour Party manifesto 2024’, June 2024, p 84. Return to text
- As above, pp 84–5. Return to text
- As above, pp 85–6. Return to text
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, ‘The English devolution white paper’, 16 December 2024, p 54. Return to text
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, ‘Letter from the deputy prime minister to local leaders: The next steps to devolution’, 16 July 2024. Return to text
- House of Commons, ‘Written question: Adult education: Finance (3053)’, 6 September 2024. Return to text
- As above. Return to text
- Department for Education, ‘Skills England’, 20 December 2024. Return to text
- House of Lords Library, ‘Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]: HL Bill 38 of 2024–25’, 17 October 2024. Return to text
- UK Parliament, ‘Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]’, accessed 27 January 2024. Return to text
- Skills England, ‘Skills England: Driving growth and widening opportunities’, 24 September 2024; and ‘Occupations in demand 2024’, 19 September 2024. Return to text
- HM Government, ‘Get Britain working’, 26 November 2024, p 2. Return to text
- As above, pp 6–7. Return to text
- As above, pp 63–4. Return to text
- For example: House of Lords, ‘Written question: Engineering: Further education (HL1368)’, 24 October 2024; and HC Hansard, 22 January 2025, col 1083. Return to text
- Labour Party, ‘Keir Starmer announces plans to drive growth by cutting waiting lists and unlocking opportunity’, 8 October 2023. Return to text
- Department for Education, ‘The first twelve institutes of technology announced’, 10 April 2019. Return to text
- House of Commons, ‘Written statement: Institutes of technology (HCWS515)’, 5 January 2022. Return to text
- HC Hansard, 16 December 2024, col 5. Return to text
- HC Hansard, 16 December 2024, col 5. Return to text
- HC Hansard, 12 December 2024, cols 396–7WH. Return to text