CIHT has submitted a response to Skills England’s Skills for Work consultation, calling for a more accessible, joined-up and forward-looking skills system that supports the needs of employers and the highways and transportation workforce. 

The response highlights the importance of occupational standards that reflect the technical knowledge, practical experience and transferable skills needed across the sector. As highways and transportation roles evolve, standards must keep pace with changes in technology, environmental requirements and professional practice. 

Improving pathways into skilled employment 

CIHT believes that young people, employers and careers advisers need clearer information about the routes into skilled employment and opportunities for career progression. 

The response calls for better connections between apprenticeships, technical qualifications and professional development, helping learners understand how different qualifications relate to specific occupations and longer-term career opportunities. 

It also emphasises the importance of making alternative routes into professional careers more visible, alongside providing greater access to careers education, placements and meaningful work experience. 

Developing skills for a changing sector 

CIHT’s 2025 Employment Trends Survey, which gathered responses from 975 professionals, identified changing skills requirements and recruitment pressures across highways and transportation. 

The consultation response highlights the growing importance of skills relating to artificial intelligence (AI), automation, data analysis, digital twins, connected and automated mobility, carbon reduction and climate adaptation. 

CIHT recommends that occupational standards are regularly reviewed in collaboration with employers and professional bodies, drawing on labour-market evidence to identify emerging skills needs. Standards should focus on underlying capabilities, rather than becoming tied to specific technologies that may quickly become outdated. 

The response also supports simplifying occupational standards through clearer language, consistent terminology and the removal of unnecessary duplication, without compromising technical competence, environmental responsibilities or public safety. 

Supporting employers and lifelong learning 

CIHT calls for greater coherence across the skills system, with nationally consistent occupational standards that can accommodate local and regional workforce needs through specialist modules, employer projects and additional training. 

The response also highlights the role of professional bodies in connecting employers, individuals, education providers and policymakers. Professional institutions can contribute sector expertise, support professional competence and ethics, and provide opportunities for continuing professional development. 

CIHT’s Learn platform, for example, offers self-paced, on-demand online learning for individuals and organisations across the highways and transportation sector. 

CIHT stresses that skills policy must support not only entry into skilled employment, but also workforce retention and career progression. Long-term visibility of infrastructure investment can help employers and education providers plan recruitment, training and workforce development more effectively. 

CIHT’s priorities 

In its response, CIHT identifies three priorities for Skills England: 

• Keeping occupational standards current, accessible and aligned with employer and professional requirements. 
• Improving opportunities for young people through better careers information and clearer pathways into skilled employment. 
• Developing the UK Standard Skills Classification as a practical framework for connecting skills across occupations, qualifications and professional development. 

Through its response, CIHT highlights the importance of a skills system that responds to the changing needs of the highways and transportation sector, supports lifelong learning and helps develop a skilled workforce for the future. 

Read the full response here.