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Chancellor Jeremy Hunt pledged that measures in the budget would help break down barriers that stop people working. One issue is how to ensure we have the skills the economy needs. The UK has faced – and is facing – a change in the nature of work. Nye Cominetti, Rui Costa, Andrew Eyles, Kathleen Henehan and Sandra McNally present an analysis of how the skills needed in the labour market have changed over the past decades and how well placed our system of training and particularly on-the-job training is to help us adapt to these changes.

Minimum wage increases have driven down the incidence of low hourly pay, but there has been much less progress elsewhere for low earners. Low pay is widespread among the self-employed, who do not benefit from the minimum wage and whose numbers have increased over the past 20 years. And there are several forms of work insecurity making life difficult for low-paid workers but would be considered totally unacceptable for higher paid workers to experience. Nye Cominetti, Rui Costa, Nikhil Datta and Felicia Odamtten write that a policy agenda for low-paid workers in the 2020s should seek to address these problems.

The young are almost always the hardest hit in a recession – and in particular those who leave school with few formal qualifications. Nye Cominetti argues the government’s unemployment initiatives are simply not big enough to address the immediate challenge of large scale job creation. Better equipping young people with the right skills and improving the transitions into further education or work for those not headed to university should be prioritised.

The UK has a significant productivity problem and the poor performance of the nation’s largest cities outside the capital contribute to this problem. Paul Brandily, Mike Brewer, Nye Cominetti, Matt Coombes, Adam Corlett, Lindsay Judge, Felicia Odamtten, Henry Overman, Cara Pacitti, Gui Rodrigues, Krishan Shah, Paul Swinney and Lalitha Try set out what change would be needed to set Greater Manchester on a plausible path for growth.