The new report from NCFE, which highlights the current and future challenges in the early years sector, includes skills gap and demand data, as well as contributions from experts.

• Special Focus: Strategies for creative recruitment

It reveals in 2022, there were over 4,000 more job postings within the early years and childcare sector than in 2017. This includes the creation of brand-new jobs, seen as emerging skills, as well as people leaving roles and creating a vacancy. It says that both result in a skills gap, with the sector’s increasing by over 2 per cent during the last five years.

The data is taken from the Office for National Statistics Labour Demand Volumes.

Janet King, sector manager for education and childcare at NCFE, said, ‘A recruitment and retention crisis leads to an inevitable skills gap in the workforce. With any large turnover of staff, there are implications for stability, and this may equate to vulnerabilities in leadership and management.

‘Put bluntly, staff joining are not staying. Where they are staying, they are taking up management and leadership positions with little post-qualification practice, whilst more experienced staff are the ones that leave.'

NCFE says it is taking steps to tackle the issue and will soon launch a new Professional Practice Framework (PPF) to support continuous professional development (CPD) in the sector. Free at the point of access, the PPF will cover all areas identified by the EYFS, with CPD resources arranged into sections to include students, newly qualified staff and experienced staff.

In its Sector Spotlight report, NCFE identifies a total of three areas of focus, they are:

• Qualifications and training -ensuring there are high-quality and accessible routes into early years and childcare, preventing the current skills gap from growing. Once in the sector, early years professionals must have access to professional development and training opportunities.
• Career progression – The large number of experienced professionals leaving the sector is forcing younger, less experienced individuals to assume management positions with little post-qualification practice. NCFE said more must be done to retain the ‘knowledge’ in the sector by presenting clearer opportunities for career progression.
• Changing the narrative – more could be done to highlight the value and ‘incredible’ impact the sector has on society. NCFE says the ‘narrative is solely around the cost for working parents and the potential effect on the economy, but more needs to be said about its essential educational role – particularly for disadvantaged young children.’

The research forms part of a new series of reports by NCFE to mark the educational charity’s 175^th anniversary. Other reports will cover further education and social care. This will be followed by a paper calling for action and change across sectors.