L&D needs a role in shaping how work changes
L&D needs a role in shaping work as AI, hybrid working and pressure on entry routes change how incoming workers acquire experience.
Decisions about AI, task allocation and working arrangements shape how people acquire expertise. This Learning News programme examines what those changes mean for L&D’s involvement in the working environment.
Its central argument is that the working environment has to be treated as part of the learning system. As employers change work, L&D needs to help assess what happens to the practice, feedback and access to experienced colleagues through which incoming workers develop judgement.
The programme brings together recent news on work experience, youth apprenticeships, early-career development and research into skilled work, and sets out why L&D needs involvement in work design, people development and decisions about AI.
The first issue is access to work itself, the starting point for acquiring the experience on which later development depends.
Routes into a first job have narrowed over time, reducing opportunities for young people to acquire the experience employers expect. A new government-backed retail programme seeks to widen access, with forty retailers pledging 11,000 work experience placements for 18 to 24-year-olds. The wider ambition is to help 100,000 young people who are out of work and education into retail jobs over the course of this Parliament.
Apprenticeship starts in England increased by 8.7% to 308,770 between August 2025 and April 2026, while starts among under-19s fell by 5.4% to 63,530. The new Foundation Apprenticeships recorded just 160 starts. Total growth therefore masks a weaker entry picture for younger workers.
Once people are in work, AI and hybrid working can change the experience available to them. Automating those tasks may remove opportunities to practise and develop judgement. Working arrangements affect how readily new entrants can observe colleagues, ask questions and receive feedback.
As AI and hybrid working change how early-career experience is acquired, apprenticeship development needs to address potential gaps in problem solving, creativity, communication and wider business awareness. We looked at Bauer Media’s apprenticeship programme, an example of how one employer is responding.
Courtnay McLeod from Bauer Media told Learning News that proofreading develops attention to detail, which can be compromised through increased use of AI. Bauer says hybrid working can make wider business context harder for apprentices to acquire through everyday contact, so its programme addresses that gap more deliberately.
L&D needs to identify which tasks provide valuable practice when employers consider automation or redesign roles. Where that practice is reduced, development plans need to address how people will acquire the experience previously gained through doing the work. Access to experienced colleagues and feedback also needs to be considered in decisions about how teams work.
Pearson’s recent research adds the scale of workforce replacement to that challenge. Across the skilled trade, technical and service occupations it examined, Pearson projects more than four million UK job openings from replacement demand between 2025 and 2035. Overall employment is projected to increase by just 26,000, with replacement demand accounting for 99% of projected openings.
Employers therefore face a substantial requirement to develop incoming workers even where their workforces are not expanding. Pearson describes occupations in which practical judgement and tacit knowledge develop through supervised practice, observation and mentoring. It calls for greater use of mentoring, hands-on practice and simulation as AI changes work.
L&D and workforce planners need to consider how incoming workers will gain access to that expertise before experienced colleagues retire, change occupation or leave. Time for supervised practice and knowledge transfer needs to be part of replacement planning.
Taken together, these stories raise a common question for employers: will changes to work preserve enough opportunities for the next generation to develop expertise?
L&D needs a role in answering that question while decisions about work are being made. That means examining the learning consequences of proposed changes and helping shape the tasks, working relationships and opportunities for practice that will develop future capability.
Key figures
- Retail work experience: 40 retailers have pledged 11,000 work experience placements; government ambition for 100,000 retail jobs for young people.
- England apprenticeship starts, August 2025 to April 2026: 308,770, up 8.7%; under-19 starts: 63,530, down 5.4%. Foundation Apprenticeships: just 160 starts.
- Pearson’s examined UK occupations, 2025 to 2035: more than four million replacement openings, 99% of projected openings; net employment growth of 26,000.
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