Baker Dearing Educational Trust

👔By taking part in employer-set projects, work experience, and by learning technical skills and workplace attitudes, UTC students are made ready for employment.

🏫 UTC students are more likely to progress to apprenticeships than their peers in mainstream schools because they receive a high-quality technical education at a school level. This education is guided by local employers and their skills needs.

From School To The Skilled Workforce - Policy Exchange Download Publication Independent Analysis Online Reader This new report by Policy Exchange makes the case that University Technical Colleges (UTCs) can play a vital role in addressing the UK’s profoun...

💼 A recent Policy Exchange report found that, at 18, UTC students are more than two and a half times more likely to enter apprenticeships than the national average and have fewer students out of education, employment or training. The report can be found below. policyexchange.org.uk/publication/...

📊 Last year, around a fifth of UTC leavers progressed onto apprenticeships, versus a national average of six per cent. In 2025, almost two-thirds of these apprenticeships were at the prestigious higher or degree level.

🎊 We are excited to be celebrating National Apprenticeship Week 2026, which this year is running between 9-15 February! #NAW2026

Throughout the week, we will be using our LinkedIn to share our NAW celebrations while also sharing individual UTCs' own achievements with apprenticeships. #thinkUTC

Health tech challenge: UTC students present healthcare solutions - Baker Dearing Teams of UTC students presented solutions to modern healthcare problems at the 2026 UTC Health Tech Challenge on Thursday 5 February.

🩺Teams of UTC students presented solutions to modern healthcare problems - with projects including an AI-powered wheelchair - at the 2026 UTC Health Tech Challenge on Thursday. #thinkUTC bakerdearing.org/resources/ne...

Thank you for all that you have done for the UTC programme, Ashley. You will be sorely missed!

Ofsted: UTCs celebrate 'exceptional' results under new model - Baker Dearing Two of our UTCs have been awarded the new top grade of 'exceptional' in Ofsted reports published this week.

🥳 Congratulations to UTC Portsmouth and London Design and Engineering UTC for being awarded 'exceptional' grades in at least one area in new Ofsted reports published this week!

Find out more about the results and read the full reports through the link #thinkUTC

bakerdearing.org/resources/ne...

The funding from The Peter Cundill Foundation will make our aims possible so we are really grateful for the confidence they have placed in us.

UTCs mean fewer young people become NEET, despite UTCs taking in higher-than-average numbers of FSM and SEND students. UTC leavers are also two and a half times more likely to enter apprenticeships than the national average.

We will achieve this by transforming the UTC network into a world-renowned technical education programme, broadening access to the Baker Award for Technical Education, and continuing to push for our UTC Sleeve initiative.

Their backing will help Baker Dearing and our UTC network to equip more young people from every background with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to capitalise on opportunities.

🆕 We would like to give our heartfelt thanks to The Peter Cundill Foundation for awarding us funding so we may continue supporting young people to thrive in life and work.

📢 Baker Dearing's Life President Lord Baker today highlighted the success of UTCs in progressing young people to apprenticeships during a House of Lords debate on the decline in graduate jobs. See his full exchange with DWP minister Baroness Sherlock below #thinkUTC

"This is short-sighted, and partly a product of Labour’s assault on free schools. Meanwhile the government’s recent review of the curriculum barely looked at work experience."

Thanks to Baroness Cavendish for her article!

"But while the Department for Education talks about the importance of T-levels and industry placements, it has just halted plans for a proposed new UTC in Southampton, which had been backed by the previous government.

"Two former UTC students, who met at university, have founded a business selling electronics kits that help children to learn.

"There should be a UTC in every town. Skills England has estimated that in priority sectors alone, 900,000 more skilled workers will be needed by 2030.

"In Leeds, Siemens asked UTC students to help improve the supply of oil into gear units. The company has implemented their solution, which it says is saving it £24,000 a year.

"About half of pupils at these institutions go on to university, and around a quarter do apprenticeships.

"These success stories suggest that employers are genuinely benefiting from the collaboration.

"But a recent report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found that UTCs have the highest proportion of exam entries in Stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects at GCSE level, above any school type in England.

"Parents have been wary of technical education, fearing that a straightforward academic curriculum is more valuable.

"I’ve seen the same look among 14- to 19-year-old pupils at the University Technical Colleges, where the courses are run with employers and offer ands-on learning in specialist areas — everything from robotics to film.

The article reads as follows:

"The faces of the youngsters, in the resulting video [regarding work placements organised by Futures For All], are infused with the joy of the real — the excitement of seeing a creative task well done. It’s transformational.

It’s beginning to look a lot like holiday job season We need young people to gain experience that makes the world of work intelligible and builds skills and confidence

🆕 The success of the University Technical College movement, as attested to by last year's Policy Exchange report, was highlighted by Baroness Cavendish in the Financial Times newspaper over the festive break. #thinkUTC

www.ft.com/content/e658...

Government to create 60,000 new places for pupils with special needs Ministers want more children with special needs to be taught at their local mainstream school

🆕 The government has announced its decision that the second Doncaster UTC, supported by the town's existing UTC, will go ahead but the new UTC for Southampton, supported by UTC Portsmouth, will not.

Read our reaction in The Times. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...

🗣️ Doncaster UTC's MP Sally Jameson yesterday spoke during Work and Pensions Questions in the House of Commons to ask about the town's proposed new UTC. See the full clip below.

👏 Thanks to Jameson for her support of UTCs and to minister Andrew Western MP for responding. #thinkUTC

UTC Schools | UTC Sleeves | Baker Dearing Educational Trust UTC Sleeves introduces specialist pathways in to secondary schools. UTC schools draw on the experience & successes of the UTC programme

🔗 More information on UTC Sleeves can be found here: bakerdearing.org/work-with-us...

👍 The minister responded that she "always enjoys my visits to UTCs," which are doing a "very good job in providing technical education that leads onto apprenticeships."

📊 Lord Baker also highlighted the proportion of UTC leavers who progress to apprenticeships (c20%) and to STEM university course (73% of the 51% who progress to university) as the UTC programme's contribution to tackling youth unemployment.

He continued that a UTC Sleeve would be "the only way that students in communities with an industrial heritage would be able to study a practical technical education."