NHBF Careers At The Cutting Edge Report: the progress one year on

One year on from the NHBF’s landmark Careers at the Cutting Edge: Tackling The Skills Shortage in The Hair and Beauty Sector report, the associaiton is calling on the beauty and hair industries to further unite to continue the progress that has been made.

Last year the National Hair & Beauty Federation (NHBF) commissioned the independent report into the beauty and hair sector skills crisis, which was written by Pragmatix Advisory. It was based on a survey of 570 beauty and hair businesses and interviews with businesses and education providers.

The report outlined a skills crisis in the hair and beauty sector based on a series of interlinked factors across qualifications and training, recruitment and retention, and financial pressures.

A year on, the NHBF has announced that progress has been made in the following areas:

Qualifications and training

Better marketing of careers: The NHBF is working with the Department for Education (DfE) to support better careers advice for the sector. They are also developing a range of careers information via the Beauty Industry Group (BIG) group website.

Ongoing training and reskilling: Launch of the NHBF Skills Zone in partnership with Pivot Point, to enable members to access flexible resources that give them the tools to develop their knowledge of the NHBF Code of Conduct, which outlines the minimum requirements for a business to be safe, legal, and profitable.

Improve college courses: The NHBF continues to support the Education and Training Foundation (ETF), which has been commissioned by DfE to deliver a rich mix of live online and face-to-face workshops, e-learning resources, mentoring, networking, and industry collaboration to support the implementation of the hairdressing, barbering and beauty therapy T-Level. This provides practical help to everyone involved in the planning and delivery of T-Levels.

Recruitment and retention

Professionalised qualifications: The NHBF have agreed and promoted industrywide joint guidelines on education and skills through the Beauty Industry Group Education and Skills Task and Finish Group.

Submissions to Government and parliament: The NHBF have called on the DfE to facilitate collaboration between central and local government to bring together young people and employers at a local level in order to promote the range of sector careers. The NHBF have done this directly to DfE and through their submission to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Beauty, Aesthetics and Wellbeing inquiry into the value of complementary therapies.

The NHBF has also supported the development of the wellbeing and holistic therapist apprenticeship standard at Level 3 and is looking at the development of Level 4 and 5 standards.

Championing Job Ready Qualifications: Through a blog published on the NHBF website and speaking at numerous sector events, exhibitions and shows.

Supporting businesses with financial pressures

Increase funding provision: The NHBF supported the Hair Professional Apprenticeship Steering group to develop two new standards and secured a significant uplift to apprenticeship funding band of £4,000 for the Hairdressing Professional standard from £7,000 to £11,000, and £2,000 for the Barbering Professional standard. This means that education providers are able to deliver up to date, fully funded apprenticeships providing a boost to sector recruitment, skills and training.

Business rates discount: The NHBF helped to secure the 75% discount for the retail sector, transitional relief, and a freeze in the multiplier in England and Wales with support through the Small Business Bonus in Scotland.

Energy bills support: Businesses have also had support through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme and its successor the Energy Bill Discount Scheme from April 2023. The NHBF is lobbying for further support from Government and Ofgem targeted at businesses locked into high contracts, through ‘blend and extend’ options.

Evidence to Government and parliament: The NHBF has submitted comprehensive evidence to the Low Pay Commission about wage rates, making the case for restraint in future rises to the National Minimum Wage/National Living Wage, submissions to the UK Parliament about labour shortages, and the Migration Advisory Committee about skills shortages, and calling for it to be easier to bring in experienced staff from overseas.

Crackdown on tax-avoiding businesses: Working in collaboration with HMRC around a sector communications and enforcement campaign around tax evasion and disguised employment for Q1 2024.

Address the VAT disparity: The NHBF called for fairer taxation and VAT in the Spring Budget submission to the Chancellor and in multiple other submissions to Government and Parliament. They are working further on an evidence base to address this disincentive to growth.

NHBF chief executive Richard Lambert said: “We have made good progress, but some of the project workstreams such as sector recruitment and retention will take more time. We will continue to implement the Sector Skills Action Plan and the cross-sector group will meet again in October 2023 to discuss and evaluate what we have achieved. We will continue to work alongside industry partners with the support of Government for the collaboration, to address all the issues highlighted by the report.”