The Talent Wales Needs May Already Be in Our Communities

When we talk about talent, we often focus on the people who are already moving successfully through education and employment, but I think we need to look more widely.

There are people in our communities who may not currently be working, people who have lost confidence in conventional routes and people whose potential is not immediately visible in a qualification or a job application. A skills strategy should not forget them.

At The Open University in Wales, part of our interest is in the capabilities that help people succeed in work and in life. Communication, confidence and the ability to keep learning are not valuable only to someone already in a job. They can also support a person to take the first steps back towards employment, explore a different career or start a business. The distinction between skills for work and skills for life is not always as clear as we make it sound.

I’ve been struck by how complicated the skills and employability landscape can be even for people who work within it. When provision, funding and employer engagement are difficult to understand, imagine how the system appears to someone who is trying to return to learning after a difficult experience. Complexity is not a neutral inconvenience. It can become another barrier to engagement. We should be thinking about how to make opportunities intelligible and approachable for people at different stages.

I’ am particularly interested in the way people build confidence to re-engage. For someone who has been away from education or employment, the first barrier may be understanding where to begin and whether the opportunity is intended for them. An employer may describe a vacancy in terms that make sense inside the business but do not help an applicant recognise their own transferable capabilities. A provider may offer valuable learning that is difficult to discover or interpret. Better collaboration can make those first steps less uncertain. It can also help organisations listen to people whose experience does not fit the most common progression routes. If we want lifelong learning to mean something, it must include those who do not currently see themselves as learners as well as those already seeking a qualification.

The experience of young people outside education, employment or training is particularly important. In our Business Barometer report 2026 New report: Business Barometer 2026 | Open University, some respondents described not understanding why applications had failed or how to develop after starting a job. Those are not necessarily signs that a person lacks motivation. They suggest that employers and support organisations need to consider whether they are communicating clearly and creating opportunities for development.

Partnerships with community and third-sector organisations can help. Many have established relationships with people who may not respond to a conventional recruitment campaign or course advertisement. Bringing those connections together with education providers and employers will help people encounter opportunities in a setting where they feel supported. It is not about lowering expectations; it is about recognising that different people may need different ways into the same world of work.

We should also think about enterprise and entrepreneurship as part of this picture. The capabilities that help someone build a business can overlap with those that support progression in employment and everyday life. If Wales wants to make better use of its talent, it needs to recognise potential before it is expressed in a job title.

That means listening, creating understandable routes and making lifelong learning relevant to people who have not always felt that education was designed for them.