From Mastering Change to Leading It: Why the Awarding Sector Must Step Up at FAB 2025

By Mark House

As the awarding sector gathers for FAB 2025, urgency is in the air. This year’s theme, “Mastering the Change,” recognises the sector’s commitment to stability and compliance - but the moment calls for something more. With the Chancellor’s Budget setting out productivity and growth as non-negotiable national goals, and the NFER’s Skills Imperative 2035 warning that up to three million jobs in declining occupations could vanish by 2035, we have moved beyond a period where “coping” or “mastering” are sufficient responses.​

“It’s time…” has become more than a slogan for RM Compare. It’s a challenge to every leader at FAB concerned about the future of assessment. We must move from mastering the administration of the past, to leading the design of the future.

Moving Beyond Compliance: What FAB 2025 Really Demands

Mastering change is essential for regulators, ministers, and the industry as a whole. It is the foundation of robust, secure, high-stakes delivery. RM Assessment embodies this, providing world-class infrastructure that guarantees security, scalability, and regulatory trust.

But “mastering” is not the finish line. The Budget language is clear: “Productivity is the constraint on living standards and public finances—nothing else matters more now.” The missions set by the Government won’t be met by doubling down on legacy approaches. The future of the awarding sector depends on our ability to adapt, reimagine, and design new assessment systems that capture the richness of human potential.

The Evidence: Jobs, Skills, and the Urgent Need to Change

NFER’s Skills Imperative 2035 report, published just days ago, reveals that the decline in routine jobs is unfolding three times faster than predicted. Up to three million roles in declining occupations could disappear by 2035. This is a stark warning that shocks the traditional boundaries of our sector.​

The report also sets out the six essential employment skills for tomorrow: collaboration, communication, creative thinking, problem-solving, self-management, and digital literacy. If our assessment systems continue to prize easy-to-mark, surface-level knowledge and side-line the complex skills employers now demand, we risk failing both learners and the economy of the future.

If we let the system behave as an “exam factory,” the cost is not measured in exam papers, but in missed opportunities for young people to demonstrate what truly matters.

Yes, we need mastery, but we also need leadership

The path forward is a “Yes, And”......

Yes, we need RM Assessment (and other established assessment providers) to:

  • Run secure, scalable, high-stakes exams at national scale
  • Give regulators and ministers confidence that today’s system is safe

And we need new ways to assess, like RM Compare, to:

  • Surface and assess the very skills NFER highlights as essential for 2035 - collaboration, communication, creative thinking, and problem-solving
  • Turn complex human judgements about quality into robust, defensible data

RM Compare uses Adaptive Comparative Judgement to transform “soft skills” into hard evidence. Already trusted for awarding, recruitment, and higher education selection, it turns expert human judgement into rigorous, repeatable data fit for policy, regulation, and real-world use.

Leading the Future: Prototyping What’s Next at FAB

Leading the future means actively designing new pathways, qualifications, and assessment types that mirror the emerging world of work. Imagine qualification boards piloting live comparative judgement for essential employment skills. Envision new assessment tasks where creative thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration are not just coached, but credibly measured and rewarded.

This is the moment for awarding sector leadership. RM Compare is ready: not to replace, but to extend the sector’s capabilities, bringing innovation into alignment with the security that regulators require.

Time for a Conversation That Counts

The Chancellor has set the challenge. NFER has provided the evidence. Now, the responsibility falls to us: to stop merely mastering the change, and to lead.

If you are at FAB 2025, visit the RM Assessment stand. Let’s talk about how we can prototype new assessments for essential employment skills, or how you might add Adaptive Comparative Judgement to a qualification you already own. The sector’s future, and the future of the learners we serve, depends on the steps we take next.