Joan Concannon opinion piece February 2026

Opinion piece by Joan Concannon, Chief Reputation and Stakeholder Relations Officer.

The Yorkshire Post published this opinion piece on Friday 20 February 2026.

You can read the opinion piece in the Yorkshire Post online or read a transcript below.

Read our report

• The Strategic Role of HE to deliver the National Industrial Strategy (PDF , 4,991kb)

The ambition for the UK economy to thrive and lead in the coming decade is palpable, yet a critical challenge threatens to bind our potential: skills. New research, as a collaboration between the University of York, QS, and Public First, delivers a clear and urgent message: a concerted, skills-first strategy, with the effective integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled by a highly-skilled workforce, could unlock a cumulative £490 billion for the UK economy by 2030, effectively tripling annual GDP growth for the rest of the decade.

But this monumental opportunity is by no means guaranteed. It rests on a fundamental pivot in how the nation views and invests in education and lifelong learning provision and how we can consider the necessity of also attracting global talent to bolster our labour market as the impacts of a declining UK birth rate manifest from 2030 onwards.

Our report reveals that 80% of the occupations deemed critical to the UK’s eight high-growth sectors require a degree-level qualification. Crucially, the economic uplift projected is driven overwhelmingly by AI augmentation - the enhancement of roles - rather than simple automation. 

But a severe skills shortage, particularly in the 630 high-importance ‘transectoral’ occupations that span multiple industries (such as AI engineers), threatens to become the binding limit on our potential for the growth that is possible. This is a systemic challenge that demands a systemic solution - and it absolutely means we need a re-set of public narratives that also acknowledges the vital role of graduate skills if we truly want to deliver critical economic growth. 

This means the decisive factor in Britain's future is the capacity to train, reskill, and upskill a graduate talent pipeline to optimise our economic growth potential. But this needs to be strategically planned in the context of our shifting demography and particularly our declining birth rate. So having sufficient talent in our labour market must include the ability to attract global talent and that begins with attracting the best and brightest students from across the world to study in the UK in the first place.

For the University of York -  a university dedicated to delivering for the public good -  these findings are not just economic projections - they offer a compelling call to action. They confirm our core belief: that investment in higher education is the most powerful engine for social and economic renewal. 

To seize this opportunity, we propose a new national compact - a solutions-oriented partnership built on immediate alignment between Government, employers, and the higher education sector. This is not about incremental change; it is about establishing a foundation of financial resilience and strategic support for higher education that empowers universities to act as responsive and agile partners to industry.

The University of York - and the wider higher education sector - is perfectly positioned to instigate this collaboration. Our commitment to the public good means we are driven not by market whims, but by a mission to address the most complex societal and economic challenges. 

We must collectively:

1. Prioritise Resilient Higher Education: Recognise and actively support the financial strength of universities to ensure they can deliver the sustained, high-quality, degree-level training and research necessary for a robust skills pipeline that is so fundamental to the UK’s economic ambitions.
2. Champion 'Transectoral' Skills: Focus policy and investment on the flexible, high-demand skills that cut across multiple growth sectors, eliminating simultaneous bottlenecks across the economy.
3. Align Education with Augmentation: Invest in the educational architecture that equips graduates and lifelong learners with the AI and emerging skills that allow them to augment jobs, translating technological potential into real economic output.

The risk of inaction is clear: missing the largest productivity opportunity in a generation. The path to economic renewal and global leadership in key sectors demands that we harness the collective power of technology, education, and industrial collaboration. We have worked intensively with QS to highlight the opportunities that the UK can exploit to really deliver inclusive economic growth. QS’ data shows clearly where policy makers, education providers and employers need to focus on. 

We want our commitment to the public good to serve as a catalyst for a new era of partnership, ensuring the skills-first strategy becomes the blueprint to deliver a more prosperous and equitable future for all of the UK.