Our CEO talks to SME Magazine About the Autumn Budget, and What It Means for Skills

by | Nov 28, 2025 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Our CEO Talks to SME Magazine About The Autumn Budget, and What It Means for Skills

When SME Magazine asked our CEO, Robin Adda, for his reaction to the Autumn Budget, he didn’t talk about tax bands or political wins. He talked about one thing: the skills crisis.

In the feature, Robin welcomes the £13bn in funding for regional mayors to invest in skills, business support and infrastructure, and the new £820m Youth Guarantee. Those numbers matter. They send a signal that skills are finally on the main stage.

But he also drew a clear line. As he put it in SME Magazine, the announcement “doesn’t match the scale of the UK’s skills crisis, especially the digital one.” For us at SkillsAssess, that is the heart of the issue.

Robin’s comment focused on three hard truths, all of which we see every day with the organisations we support:

• Funding is welcome, but the gap is bigger.
There is more money in the system, but the skills problem didn’t suddenly shrink. The UK is still facing a major shortfall in the capabilities businesses need, particularly in digital and AI.

• AI literacy is already essential.
As he noted, roles are changing and some are fading away as new technologies emerge. AI isn’t “coming soon”; it’s already in the tools people use, the processes they follow and the decisions managers make.

• SMEs are carrying the burden.
With the OBR downgrading economic growth forecasts from 2026 onwards, Robin warned that pressure on growth, productivity and competitiveness will intensify. Yet employers are “struggling to find the capabilities they need internally”, especially in entry-level roles. His conclusion was blunt: the measures “acknowledge the problem”, but the UK has missed a chance to truly future-proof its economy – and the burden “will now fall even more heavily on SMEs.”

This is exactly the problem SkillsAssess was built for.

Robin’s comments underline why we exist. Our focus is on giving organisations the clarity they need right now:

• Clarity on what skills actually exist in their teams today
• Clarity on where the real gaps are, including digital skills and AI literacy
• Clarity on how to move people from where they are to where they need to be

Government funding can help. But it won’t tell you which skills are missing in your customer service team, or why your “entry-level” roles are now impossible to fill, or which managers need AI awareness training first. That’s where data, not guesswork, has to lead.

So yes, we’re proud that Robin’s voice is part of the national conversation in SME Magazine. It matters that someone is saying, plainly, that today’s measures don’t match the scale of the crisis and that SMEs are being asked to carry more of the weight.

We will keep:

• Calling out the reality that AI literacy is now a core skill, not a niche one
• Helping organisations see their true skills picture, beyond job titles and CVs
• Building practical, role-based learning pathways so people can actually adapt

If you read Robin’s quote and recognise your own organisation in it, struggling to find the right capabilities internally, feeling the squeeze on growth and productivity, that’s exactly what we’re here for.

The Autumn Budget may have acknowledged the problem. SkillsAssess is here to help you do something about it.

Read the full article here.

If you’re ready to close skills gaps in your organisation and boost productivity with precision, explore SkillsAssess today.

For more on how we’re supporting UK organisations to build future-ready teams explore our solution, ask for a demo or send us an email: contact@skillsassess.ai