Spain needs more technical talent: What role can Dual Vocational Training play?
Vocational Education and Training (VET) is growing in Spain, but there is still a gap between the talent the labour market needs and the training and employment opportunities available to young people. A new report prepared by IESE Business School, Fundación Exit and Empieza por Educar analyses this reality from the perspective of businesses and highlights several key areas for progress.
Spain faces a major challenge: strengthening the connection between education and employment.
In the first quarter of 2026, 24.5% of young people aged 16 to 24 were unemployed, compared with 10.9% of the overall population. At the same time, businesses continue to struggle to find certain technical profiles, particularly those with intermediate-level qualifications.
The paradox is clear: young people are looking for opportunities, and businesses need to recruit talent, yet the two do not always manage to connect.
In this context, Vocational Education and Training (VET), particularly Dual VET, can play a key role.
The report Vocational Education and Training in Spain: A Business Perspective, prepared by IESE Business School in collaboration with Fundación Exit and Empieza por Educar, draws on the experience of 21 business leaders from companies of different sizes and across various sectors. Its aim is to identify what is working, what challenges remain and what could encourage more businesses to get involved in training young people.
More VET, but still not meeting labour market needs
VET has grown significantly in recent years. Over five academic years, the number of enrolled students has increased by 30%. However, growth has not been evenly distributed across all levels:
- +39.1% in higher-level VET.
- +24% in intermediate-level VET.
- +6.8% in basic-level VET.
The last figure is particularly significant.
Although VET continues to expand, Spain’s education and training system still has a substantial shortage of intermediate-level technical professionals. Currently, only 23% of the working-age population has intermediate-level technical qualifications, while forecasts from the Ministry of Education indicate that by 2030, 50% of advertised jobs will require intermediate-level qualifications. According to estimates included in the report, Spain would need more than twice as many professionals at this qualification level to meet labour market demand.
The issue, therefore, is not simply how many people study VET, but how well training meets the actual needs of the labour market.
What does Dual VET offer businesses?
One of the report’s clearest findings is that businesses already working with VET students have a positive view of the experience. Work placements and Dual VET programmes have become more than a training pathway for many organisations: they are also a tool for attracting, developing and retaining talent.
This experience allows businesses to assess young people’s skills in a real working environment before potentially hiring them. It also makes it easier to tailor part of the training to the specific requirements of each role.
The result is a better match between a professional’s profile and the responsibilities they will need to carry out. In addition, the businesses interviewed highlight that VET students tend to have more practical training and a more hands-on approach, with employment expectations that are better aligned with the role. For this reason, some organisations see VET as a genuine talent strategy.
Workplace training allows businesses to identify, train and retain qualified professionals before they formally join the organisation.
And the benefits are not limited to large companies. The report notes that talent trained by large businesses may also go on to join other organisations in their surrounding business ecosystem, particularly suppliers and companies within their value chains. This means that companies with greater training capacity can help develop talent across an entire sector.
Which professional profiles do businesses need?
The interviews reveal particularly strong demand for technical profiles linked to industry, maintenance, manufacturing and logistics.
The profiles mentioned include welders, electricians, electromechanics technicians, plumbers, refrigeration technicians and mechanical manufacturing technicians, as well as professionals in logistics, healthcare, social and healthcare services, mechatronics and IT systems. And this is not simply a matter of technical knowledge.
Businesses also highlight skills such as adaptability, the ability to learn, resilience, customer orientation and the capacity to integrate into real production environments.
This is where contact with businesses adds value: it allows young people to learn not only a profession, but also how to navigate a professional environment.
What works: Collaboration and support
The report identifies one particularly important factor among businesses achieving the best results: ongoing collaboration with educational institutions.
It is not simply a matter of hosting students for a set period. The most established partnerships are built on a stable relationship between the business and the educational institution, allowing them to jointly define learning objectives, identify needs and adapt training content.
Having trained workplace mentors who have sufficient time to support students is also essential. Mentoring is identified as one of the key factors behind a successful experience, but also as one of the main challenges, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Promoting Dual VET, therefore, is not just about getting more businesses involved. It also means helping businesses understand how to participate and ensuring they can provide young people with appropriate support.
Significant barriers remain
The report identifies several types of obstacles.
For businesses, the main challenges include a lack of awareness of the system, limited resources and difficulties finding and training workplace mentors.
From the perspective of educational institutions, businesses point to discrepancies between some curricula and labour market needs, as well as difficulties related to schedules, calendars and transport.
There is also a social barrier: although perceptions of VET have improved, the idea that it is a less prestigious option than university education persists. This perception particularly affects certain technical trades and women’s participation in traditionally male-dominated programmes.
A final challenge is especially relevant for businesses operating across different regions: administrative complexity and differing regulations between Spain’s autonomous communities.
For example, the report notes that the number of hours students spend training in a business can vary between regions: 1,000 hours in some and 750 in others. Some of the businesses interviewed also work with more than 50 educational institutions, making it considerably more complex to manage different agreements and procedures.
The major challenge: Bringing businesses closer to basic-level VET
Within this broader picture, one finding deserves particular attention: most of the businesses interviewed are not currently involved in Basic VET programmes.
The report identifies a significant lack of awareness of this pathway, including the profile of its students, its purpose and how work placements operate. This is particularly important because Basic VET serves a purpose that goes far beyond vocational training.
It is aimed at young people who have not found their place in more traditional educational pathways and can provide an opportunity to re-engage with education, develop skills and begin building a professional identity.
Contact with a business can be particularly meaningful at this stage.
The report highlights that practical workplace experiences can help improve self-esteem, a sense of belonging, future expectations and the development of work habits. They can also help young people picture a realistic professional future for themselves.
However, businesses face specific challenges in this area, including students’ age, certain safety requirements, the need for closer support and uncertainty about the responsibilities and tasks that underage students can take on.
One particularly interesting conclusion is that many of these barriers appear to stem from a lack of awareness and previous experience, rather than an explicit unwillingness to collaborate.
This creates an opportunity.
From analysis to action
The report does more than identify challenges. It also highlights several ways forward: strengthening long-term collaboration between businesses and educational institutions, updating curricula and digital skills, reinforcing the role of workplace mentors, simplifying administrative procedures and creating support and intermediary mechanisms to facilitate relationships between the different stakeholders.
In the case of Basic VET, it also proposes gradual models of collaboration, pedagogical and administrative support, and initial pilot projects that allow businesses to gain a better understanding of this educational pathway and build confidence in working with it.
Because if there is one thing this report shows, it is that Dual VET is neither solely an educational issue nor simply a talent recruitment tool. It is a meeting point: between educational institutions and businesses, between training and employment, and between what a person learns and what they can go on to achieve.
At Fundación Exit, we have been working for more than 25 years to bring these worlds closer together and create opportunities for young people experiencing social vulnerability. This report reinforces a conviction that is central to our everyday work: when a business opens its doors and supports a young person, it is not only training a future professional; it may also be helping them imagine a future full of possibilities.
The challenge now is to ensure that more and more businesses can be part of this process.
Because connecting talent with opportunities should not depend on the circumstances into which someone is born.
