UK businesses increasingly putting skills at the forefront of graduate recruitment, Kingston University’s latest Future Skills report finds

Businesses in the UK are increasingly prioritising human-centric skills, such as problem solving, creativity and resilience when it comes to graduate recruitment, with new polling from Kingston University in London finding 56 per cent now consider this an optimal hiring practice.

The findings are contained in Kingston University’s latest Future Skills report, entitled Perspectives from East and West. They build on three previous reports which, since 2021, have seen the University work in partnership with YouGov to regularly sample more than 2,000 UK business leaders to identify the skills most valued by industry in a rapidly changing workplace.

The results of Kingston University’s latest Future Skills league table have seen an increase in perceived importance of all the skills featured since its previous rankings published in December 2023. Problem solving and process skills, communication and digital skills once again hold the top three spots. The YouGov polling also highlights the growing significance of digital skills and financial literacy in the workplace, with each rising by 8 per cent in perceived importance in the latest survey.

The upward trend across all skills featured in the league table indicates the growing emphasis employers are placing on well-rounded, adaptable talent in today’s workplace – attributes for which Kingston University has long been advocating through its sector-leading Future Skills campaign. Since the campaign’s inception in 2021, Kingston University has been championing the importance of skills for innovation and their role in driving a thriving national economy. 

At the same time, the University been leading the way in the United Kingdom through the development of an innovative model of Future Skills education, which it has been embedding across its undergraduate curriculum. From September 2025, every undergraduate at Kingston University will complete its sector-leading Future Skills programme as a core taught and assessed part of each stage of their degree studies alongside their subject-specific learning. 

The advances Kingston University has been making have attracted widespread support from employers, industry experts and key policy makers. They include Adobe, which has partnered with the University to support students gaining vital Future Skills, including critical thinking, digital and analytical skills, creativity and initiative. The University is an Adobe Creative Campus. Leading retail brand John Lewis Partnership has also backed Kingston University’s Future Skills programme most recently setting a live brief that has seen more than 600 undergraduates from across a variety of subject areas tasked with creating innovative business solutions for Waitrose & Partners.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Steven Spier, who has been instrumental in overseeing Kingston University’s rise to become the leading provider of Future Skills education in the United Kingdom, said: “Artificial intelligence has dominated the narrative about the future of work in recent years, perhaps even overtaking the perceived threat of global competitors. Its advent has firmly reinforced the need for Future Skills – those skills that are uniquely human – as we prepare our graduates to become well-rounded individuals who will play a key role in ensuring the workforce of the future can adapt and thrive whatever challenges and changes arise.

“Our latest report shows human-centric competencies are equally as vital as technical skills in the modern workplace. Only by embedding them will we be able to truly address the new developments and opportunities that lie ahead in our rapidly evolving, digital-first world.”

The Future Skills report also, for the first time, includes international perspectives with research contributions from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. These show contrasting views on the transformative power of artificial intelligence, with firms in Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Japan and Taiwan uniformly treating AI and digital skills as top strategic priorities while YouGov polling shows only 23 per cent of UK businesses report that AI would fundamentally change their operations.

The NTU research also exposes fundamental differences in national approaches to workplace skills development, with East Asia prioritising leadership, ethics and global perspective in addition to a strong focus on digital skills and AI readiness. Conversely, Western frameworks emphasise individual capabilities, such as problem solving, critical thinking and creativity. 

The research also shows a significant divergence in governance strategies. East Asian frameworks are state-led, with substantial funding and nationwide standards aligned with government priorities and employer needs. Western skills initiatives, on the other hand, tend to be institution-driven and bottom-up – suggesting the West could learn from the East’s approach to ensure the UK can remain globally competitive and at the forefront of innovation.

Director of the Centre for Cross Economy at Nanyang Technological University Professor Nam-Joon Cho said: “The ability to anticipate and adapt to technological, environmental and social change is essential for the next generation of learners and leaders.

"Despite differences in governance and delivery, both parts of the globe share a commitment to fusing digital competence with human-centric capabilities such as ethics, leadership and global perspective. This research demonstrates the strategic clarity of Asia's state-led skills frameworks alongside Kingston University's innovative university-led model. As we prepare for the disruptions of generative AI and green transitions, we must embrace mutual learning across regions to build collective resilience.”

• Read Kingston University's latest Future Skills report, Perspectives from East and West.
• Find out more about Kingston University's Future Skills campaign.