One in eight UK jobs sits within the food and drink industry, yet the sector faces growing workforce shortages that threaten its long-term stability. A new report from IGD warns that labour and skills gaps across the food system are showing little sign of improvement, raising concerns about the industry's ability to sustain operations and support national food security in the years ahead.
According to the analysis, the UK food system currently employs around 4.1 million people, making it one of the country's largest employers. At the same time, 946,000 young adults, roughly one in eight, are classified as NEET, meaning they are not in education, employment or training. This disconnect highlights a significant pool of untapped potential, even as businesses across agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, retail and hospitality struggle to fill essential roles.
The wider labour market also reflects deeper structural challenges. Since 2022, unemployment has risen by 652,000 people, while economic inactivity now exceeds nine million. These figures point to a workforce that is both shrinking and increasingly disconnected from available opportunities, creating long term pressure for industries that rely heavily on skilled and frontline labour.
IGD's report, Food and drink workforce – a quiet crisis building?, warns that the situation is unlikely to resolve itself through economic recovery alone. Businesses have so far managed to shield consumers from disruption, but the report suggests the sector may be approaching a tipping point. If labour shortages continue to intensify, they could begin to show through reduced product availability, declining service levels, higher costs and growing operational strain across the supply chain.
Several structural factors are contributing to this pressure. An ageing population means more workers are retiring while fewer young people are entering the labour market. Long-term illness among working age adults is also rising, further reducing available labour. Migration policies have limited access to workers the industry has historically relied on, while many employers say the education and training system does not consistently produce candidates with the technical and soft skills needed for the workplace. At the same time, expectations around work are shifting among younger generations.
Signs of strain are already visible in many parts of the sector. Businesses report longer vacancy fill times, growing skills shortages and increasing levels of burnout among staff. Succession planning has also become more difficult in critical roles such as HGV drivers, engineers and frontline operational positions.
With 4.1 million people working across the food system, nearly twice the size of the NHS workforce, the implications extend well beyond individual businesses. Workforce instability has the potential to affect product availability, drive up costs, slow progress toward net zero goals and ultimately weaken the UK's ability to maintain a resilient food supply in an increasingly uncertain global environment.
In response, IGD is relaunching and expanding its long running industry initiative, Feeding Britain's Future. First introduced in 2012, the programme will be refreshed later this year with a renewed focus on strengthening the sector's talent pipeline and helping employers attract, retain and develop skilled workers.
The initiative will centre on six areas of action designed to support young people and raise awareness of careers in food and drink. These include providing free early career learning opportunities across the industry, delivering a national schools programme to build skills and confidence, and increasing the visibility of food sector careers across widely used digital platforms.
Further plans include building strategic partnerships with universities to raise the profile of food and drink careers, creating scalable work experience opportunities that give young people practical insight into the sector, and bringing businesses together to amplify a collective voice promoting careers in food and drink through campaigns such as IGD's youth focused Mmmakeyourmark initiative.
Alongside industry action, IGD is calling for stronger government partnership to address the long term workforce challenge. Recommendations include developing a national workforce strategy for the food and drink sector, reforming the Growth and Skills Levy, providing greater certainty around seasonal and skills based immigration routes and improving alignment between Jobcentre support, local skills planning and the needs of the industry.
Commenting on the report, Naomi Kissman, Social Impact Director at IGD, said: "This quiet crisis has been building for years, but the pressure is intensifying and will reach a crisis point without a meaningful shift in approach. Our analysis shows this is a structural challenge, bigger than any one business, and it requires industry and government working together to secure the future of the UK food system.
"At the same time, the UK is facing a growing crisis of youth opportunity. We have a responsibility, as the nation's largest private sector employer, to give young people the future they deserve, as part of a confident, skilled, future-ready workforce."
The evidence is clear: the UK food and drink sector is experiencing a slow burn workforce crisis that will become increasingly difficult to reverse the longer it is left unaddressed. Rising long-term sickness, an ageing workforce and persistent youth disengagement are shrinking labour supply at the very moment the industry needs more skills, more capacity and more resilience.
If these pressures continue unchecked, the consequences will be felt far beyond the workforce itself. Product availability, operational service levels, cost pressures, the pace of net zero transformation and ultimately the UK's food security all depend on a stable, skilled labour market.
IGD's report Food and drink workforce – a quiet crisis building? makes a simple but urgent point: the food system cannot solve this alone. Industry and government must work together to build a long-term, joined up workforce strategy that secures the people, skills and opportunities needed to keep the nation fed for decades to come.
Source: IGD
