Education and Skills for Long-Term Asylum Seeker and Refugee Integration was the focus of a collaborative session delivered by Abdikarim Ali, Head of Client Services, and Cathy Hill, Senior Philanthropy Manager, from Breaking Barriers. Speaking at The Supporting Asylum Seekers and Refugees Conference 2026, now available on demand, they challenged a common assumption: that refugees must move through education, then skills development, then employment in a neat, linear order.
Their message was clear and practical. Refugees and people seeking asylum do not experience housing, health, English language learning, employment, qualifications, and community life as separate issues. They experience them all at once. If support services are designed in silos, integration becomes harder than it needs to be.
Why Education and Skills for Long-Term Asylum Seeker and Refugee Integration Must Be Rethought
Cathy opened the session by reflecting on the wider conference discussions around housing, health, safeguarding, education, employment, and community. Each area matters, but the challenge is that people rebuilding their lives must navigate them simultaneously.
She argued that education and skills are too often treated as preparation for employment: first someone learns English, then gets qualifications recognised, then builds confidence, and only then looks for work. While this may look logical from a service design perspective, it does not reflect real life.
Breaking Barriers’ experience shows that many refugees arrive with significant education, professional backgrounds, and expertise. Cathy noted that last year, 78% of the people who came to Breaking Barriers for support had a qualification at level four or above, compared with 37% of the UK population. Their clients include doctors, teachers, engineers, nurses, data analysts, business owners, and people with years of professional experience.
The issue, then, is not that people arrive without skills. It is that systems often prevent them from using the skills they already have.
Waiting Is Not Neutral
One of the strongest points in the session was Cathy’s observation that “waiting isn’t neutral.” For people in the asylum system, long periods without the right to work can have serious consequences. Professional knowledge can become less current, networks can fade, confidence can fall, technology can move on, and employers can feel further out of reach.
Breaking Barriers has seen that more than a quarter of the people it supports wait over two years before receiving refugee status. By the time that decision arrives, people are often expected to find housing, improve English, understand UK recruitment, rebuild professional networks, and work out whether their qualifications are recognised—all at the same time.
This is why Breaking Barriers has moved away from thinking about education, skills, and employment as sequential steps. Instead, the organisation now sees learning as something that runs throughout a person’s working life and integration journey.
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A Frontline View: Abdikarim Ali on What Refugees Are Really Navigating
Abdikarim Ali brought the frontline perspective into the session, grounding Cathy’s strategic framing in day-to-day client experience. He described how his first conversations with clients often begin with a simple question: what were you doing before you came to the UK?
The answers are frequently striking. People describe being doctors, engineers, teachers, managers, entrepreneurs, and skilled professionals. But when Abdikarim asks what has happened since arriving in the UK, the conversation changes. People speak about waiting years for decisions, struggling to access English classes, being unsure whether qualifications are recognised, applying for jobs without response, and losing confidence without knowing whether the issue is their CV, English, experience, or something else.
Education, Skills, and Employment Are Connected
Abdikarim explained that people rarely come to Breaking Barriers with just one isolated problem. If someone’s English does not feel strong enough, they may avoid applying for roles. If they do not understand professional registration, they may apply for jobs they are not yet eligible for. If they do not understand UK recruitment, repeated silence from employers can quickly damage confidence.
That means employability support is not simply about writing a CV. It is about understanding where to begin. For one person, that might be an English class. For another, it might be qualification recognition. For someone else, it might be employer introductions, mentoring, or simply reassurance that their previous career is still possible.
Three Changes in Breaking Barriers’ Approach
Abdikarim and Cathy described three important shifts in how Breaking Barriers now supports people.
1. Learning Runs Alongside Employment Support
First, education, skills, and employment are no longer treated as separate stages. Someone may still be improving their English while applying for jobs. They may be speaking to employers while qualifications are being assessed. They may be learning how UK recruitment works while building a professional network.
This approach recognises that progress is not always linear. People need support that can move with them, not a system that requires them to complete one stage before accessing the next.
2. Support Should Reduce Handover Fatigue
Second, Breaking Barriers recognised how exhausting it can be for people to be sent from one organisation to another: one place for English, another for employment advice, another for qualification recognition, and another for mentoring. Every referral means retelling a story, and every handover creates a risk that someone loses confidence or disengages.
Abdikarim explained that this was one reason Breaking Barriers brought RefuAid’s English language and professional requalification programmes into the organisation. The aim was not for one organisation to do everything, but to allow clients to sit with one advisor who can see the whole picture.
3. Employers Need to Be Involved Earlier
Third, the role of employers has changed. Rather than bringing employers in only when someone is “job ready,” Breaking Barriers now involves them much earlier. Clients can hear directly from employers, ask questions, understand expectations, and begin building confidence.
This also helps employers. Instead of seeing only employment gaps or unfamiliar qualifications on a CV, they meet people as individuals and recognise the skills and experience they bring. Breaking Barriers now runs employer-led pathways across sectors including energy, customer service, digital, and health.
Starting Before Refugee Status Is Granted
A key part of the session was the idea that support can begin while people are still in asylum accommodation, before they have the right to work. Although they cannot take up employment yet, they can improve their English, understand the labour market, meet employers, and plan for what comes next.
This preventative approach means that when refugee status is granted, people are not starting from zero. They may already have built knowledge, confidence, relationships, and a clearer sense of direction.
Tariq’s Story: Turning Qualifications into a Career
Abdikarim shared the story of Tariq (Name changed to protect personal privacy), who came to the UK from Sudan after qualifying as a junior doctor. Tariq wanted to resume his medical career in the UK, but he had to navigate a different professional system, including the requirements for General Medical Council registration.
He had been applying for jobs persistently but was getting nowhere, and this had affected his motivation. Abdikarim stressed that Tariq did not need to start again from scratch. He needed help translating a qualification gained in one system into a career in another.
Through one-to-one employability support, Tariq received practical advice on the UK labour market and realistic next steps, alongside encouragement from someone who took his ambitions seriously. He has since secured a paid internship, marking an important step back into his professional career in the UK.
What This Means for Organisations and Commissioners
Cathy closed the session by drawing out the wider implications. For organisations, the lesson is that learning does not stop when someone receives refugee status. In many ways, a different kind of learning begins: English for work, labour market knowledge, professional registration, and confidence in navigating systems.
For commissioners, the challenge is to stop funding isolated services as if integration happens in separate boxes. Employment specialists need housing organisations. Housing organisations need language providers. Language providers need employers. Cathy suggested that commissioners should think more about commissioning journeys, not just services.
She also highlighted Breaking Barriers’ partnerships with local authorities, including Manchester City Council, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Birmingham City Council, and the Greater London Authority. These partnerships explore wraparound support, business English, employment readiness, and preventative work for people in the asylum system.
Education and Skills for Long-Term Asylum Seeker and Refugee Integration Should Start from People’s Strengths
The central message from Abdikarim Ali and Cathy Hill’s collaborative session is that Education and Skills for Long-Term Asylum Seeker and Refugee Integration must be built around people’s lives, not organisational structures. Refugees do not need years of preparation before they can contribute. They contribute while they learn, rebuild, connect, and work towards stability.
For charities, employers, commissioners, and local authorities, the practical takeaway is simple: start earlier, connect support better, involve employers sooner, and recognise the skills people already bring. The full session from The Supporting Asylum Seekers and Refugees Conference 2026 is available to watch on demand for those who want to explore the discussion in more depth.
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