Breaking the Firewall: how to engage SMEs in technical education

3rd Jun 2026
Harriet Evans

Engaging SMEs in the skills agenda remains one of the biggest challenges for policymakers, providers and other employer-facing organisations. Gatsby’s new Bright Spots research offers practical insights for those working to meet that challenge.

Undertaken by independent consultants Ben Caspersz and Lucy Proudfoot, the research takes a different approach to how this issue is typically explored. Rather than focus on barriers, gaps and reasons for non-engagement, it applies a Positive Deviance methodology: the idea that within every community there are exceptional outliers – or Bright Spots – whose behaviours and strategies enable them to solve problems more effectively than their peers, despite having access to the same resources.

Instead of asking “why don’t SMEs engage?”, the research sought out SMEs already engaging with exceptional success and asked a different question: “how are you making this work?”.

Through in-depth interviews and analysis with 13 Bright Spot companies across England, the researchers examined the specific knowledge, experiences and hyper-local factors that enabled them to integrate technical education and skills into their workforce planning and recruitment. To ensure the findings were robust, they also surveyed 100 SME owners across the country, testing the insights and helping to verify their relevance to mainstream businesses.

The result is 15 practical and scalable recommendations for those seeking to engage SMEs more effectively in technical education and skills. The aim is not simply to celebrate successful businesses, but to understand what others can learn from their experiences – and how those lessons can be adapted and applied more widely.

The Firewall

Across the conversations with Bright Spot businesses, one insight emerged particularly strongly: small-business leaders, somewhat uniquely, surround themselves with a firewall. This protective barrier makes them especially difficult to reach, but enables them to focus on their priorities: delivering for customers, managing cash flow and keeping their businesses afloat day-to-day.

The research uncovered specific moments when that firewall temporarily lowers and leaders become more open to thinking about technical education and skills. The report describes these as moments of opportunity and identifies five in total. Targeting SMEs at these moments may offer a more effective way to engage them.

Michelle Rea, Director of Communications at Gatsby Education, said:

“We hear time and again that engaging SMEs is one of the hardest parts of delivering technical education reform. That’s why helping to connect education and employers, particularly smaller businesses, is a central part of Gatsby Education’s mission. We intentionally don’t present the findings in the Bright Spots research as definitive solutions – sadly, there is no silver bullet! – but we hope it offers new ideas and inspiration, with a set of recommendations that can be adapted and built on. Not everyone will adopt everything, but if it sparks even a few new ways of engaging SMEs, or opens up conversations, it will have served its purpose“.