For young people leaving school, sixth forms and colleges provide a route into further study, development of practical skills and future employment. Ensuring those opportunities remain accessible is particularly important amid concerns about young people becoming NEET - not in education, employment or training.
Addressing that challenge means considering both the support young people need and whether education providers have the capacity to welcome them. Colleges need suitable classrooms, workshops and specialist facilities to deliver their courses. When demand outstrips that space, they face difficult decisions about how many students they can accommodate.
This academic year, colleges took on 32,000 extra students with no additional money to support them, and next year is shaping up to bring more of the same pressure. A survey of 114 colleges by the Association of Colleges found they expect to enrol more than 22,000 additional 16- to 18-year-olds than they will receive funding for, with over half of these additional applicants at risk of being turned away.
The experts at Portakabin, a modular building specialist, explore what is driving this capacity squeeze, why access to suitable learning space matters and how colleges can make better use of existing buildings and introduce additional facilities, including modular buildings.
Demand for technical courses is outpacing capacity
School sixth forms typically focus on A levels, although some also offer vocational qualifications. Further education colleges generally offer a broader mix of academic, technical and vocational courses, while sixth-form colleges primarily specialise in education for 16- to 19-year-olds.
The type of space needed therefore varies, some courses mainly require classrooms, while others depend on specialist workshops, laboratories and industry-standard equipment.
Student numbers in colleges have grown much faster than in school sixth forms over the past few years, increasing pressure on these facilities.
For practical courses such as electrical installation, plumbing and engineering, accommodating more students means providing suitable equipment and workspaces alongside additional teaching capacity. Some colleges have responded by reconfiguring existing buildings, converting offices and leasing additional space to keep pace with demand.
Government funding rates have not moved at the same speed, with the national rate for 16- and 17-year-olds rising by just 0.5 per cent for the coming academic year, the smallest increase since rates were frozen.
Courses close and waiting lists grow once workshop space runs out, and timetables become harder to build around the rooms that remain available. Modular buildings offer a genuinely useful route through this, providing flexible teaching space, workshops and support facilities without the years long lead times that traditional construction requires.
Construction courses are feeling the most strain
Construction trades, such as electrical installation, plumbing and bricklaying, are facing the most strain for colleges nationally, with thousands of applicants expected to miss out on their preferred course next year purely because of a lack of workshop capacity. Practical space per learner is high in subjects like electrical installation, plumbing and carpentry, and colleges are having to turn away applicants even where local demand and skills needs are strong.
Colleges may want to offer more construction course places but lack the workshops, equipment and teaching space needed to accommodate additional students safely.
For young people leaving school, sixth forms and colleges provide a route into further study, practical skills and future employment. Ensuring those opportunities remain accessible is particularly important when an estimated 981,000 young people aged 16–24 in the UK - 13% of that age group - were not in education, employment or training (NEET) between April and June 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Providing sufficient teaching space is therefore one part of the wider effort to prevent young people becoming NEET.
Jashan Bahad, Education Sector Manager at Portakabinat Portakabin, says colleges are increasingly approaching modular building not as a stopgap but as a considered part of their estate’s strategy. "We're seeing colleges come to us because they've exhausted what they can do with their existing footprint," he says. "Corridors have already been narrowed, halls have already been converted, and there simply isn't anywhere left to take space from without losing something else that matters to students."
Why speed matters as much as space
Traditional construction projects can take years to move from planning through to completion, which is why colleges may explore alternative options, including modular buildings, when planning additional workshop capacity for the next academic year.
"Capital funding decisions and student enrolment cycles rarely line up neatly," Bahad says. "A college might not know its final growth numbers until close to the start of term, so the ability to design, manufacture and install a building in a matter of months rather than years changes what's actually possible for a leadership team planning ahead."
Since 80% of modular buildings are constructed offsite in controlled factory settings, much of the work can happen in parallel with groundworks rather than in sequence. This can bring total project timelines down considerably compared with traditional build methods, while causing far less disruption to a live campus that still has students and staff moving through it every day.
Designing space around the trade
Specialist facilities present their own challenges. An electrical installation or plumbing workshop has very different requirements from a standard classroom, including dedicated training rigs, workbenches, tool storage and space for students to practise safely.
Depending on the activities being taught, these spaces may also need additional electrical supplies, water connections, drainage or ventilation, all of which should be considered early in the design process.
[Insert name] says planning specialist teaching facilities means meeting the technical needs of today’s courses while allowing for future changes in how the space is used. "Portakabin works closely with college estates teams to design spaces around the specific trade being taught, whether that's power supplies for welding bays or ventilation for engineering workshops," hesays.
"But the huge benefit of modular construction, is that we also build knowing that the space may be reconfigured at a later date because demand for individual courses can shift dramatically from one enrolment cycle to the next."
With the 16- to 18-year-old population set to keep rising until a peak in 2028 and technical courses remaining in high demand, planning sufficient teaching space will remain a priority for sixth forms and colleges. For estates teams and college leaders exploring how to expand safely and quickly, modular buildings offer a practical option for adding workshops, classrooms and support facilities, helping them accommodate more students as demand grows.
