While Australians know the way they work is changing, they are less clear on the skills they need to adapt to new kinds of automation. Does every Australian need to be proficient in a coding language? What will older workers need to know to remain employable? Is it more important for early career workers to develop a technical specialisation or to develop enterprise skills such as communication and leadership? This report helps Australians navigate the major shifts in the future of work by answering three critical questions: What skills do we need to succeed in the future? When during our working lives will we need to learn these skills? How can we adjust work and learning practices to acquire the skills we need? To understand how skill requirements for the Australian workforce are shifting, the report analyses recent changes in more than 300 jobs, more than 2,000 work tasks and more than 500 skills required to complete these tasks. We examine how tasks are changing in our economy, and the skills workers are using more often in response. More importantly, this report translates what we know about the jobs of the future into what it means for the skills of the future. It assesses in detail how much time, in hours, every worker in this country has spent on education and training over their lifetime – and how much these investments in skills will likely need to change by 2040. This approach offers unique insights into the amount of training and education required for each Australian occupation today and in the future. The result is a comprehensive picture of the actual size of the reskilling challenge in this country.

The report Strategies for the New Economy: Making Skills the Currency of the Labour Market presents ten strategies and twenty-two case studies that illustrate the range of actions that can be taken by educationalists, education technologists, business leaders and government to shift to a fully skills-based labour market. The strategies can help prepare the labour market for the future of work and build a new foundation for social mobility. They span a range of approaches: realizing the potential of education technology; building and certifying skills across the age range; designing coherent and portable certifications, mapping the skills content of jobs and aligning existing skills taxonomies.

This Adult, Community and Further Education Board Strategy 2020–25 has been developed based on extensive stakeholder consultation, a scan of the operating environment (including Victorian Government policy directions), and a review of relevant research literature and the Adult, Community and Further Education Board Strategy 2016–19. The Strategy is a primary means to implement the 2019 Statement of the Minister for Training and Skills and Minister for Higher Education on Adult Community Education. The Ministerial Statement establishes priority directions for policy, and this Strategy aligns closely with those directions. Linkages with the Statement are outlined in later sections of the Strategy. This strategy establishes a blueprint for adult community and further education in Victoria for the next six years and is the primary means by which the Ministerial Statement will be implemented. In fulfilment of the Adult, Community and Further Education Board’s statutory roles and functions under the Education and Training Reform Act 2006, the Strategy responds to trends and challenges in the Learn Local sector, including changes in learner needs, changing modes of skills acquisition, changes in place-based models, changes in industry and the nature of work, policy and regulatory changes at the State and Commonwealth Government levels, and changes in society more generally. Above all, it reflects the right of people to access core education and training.

This paper questions whether the previous assumptions underpinning vocational qualifications for Australia are still valid. Much has changed since the development of national curriculum in the 1980s and then the implementation of Training Packages in 1996. While the world of work has changed dramatically, individuals entering work have correspondingly different expectations, needs and potentially a complex, multifaceted journey to navigate. When the existing qualifications architecture was designed the internet was in its infancy, email yet to be deployed, smart phones unimagined and digitisation was in the realm of science fiction. The skills and capabilities required to enter and stay in the workforce in the 2020s and beyond are different than in the 1990s. While some skills remain constant, many new ones have been added and the balance has shifted and continues to shift. No longer are we developing qualifications for a world where your entry qualification is designed set you up for the remainder of your working life.

This research considers the likely demand for skills over the next seven years, the current skill levels of people living in the UK and highlights the underutilisation of millions of working age Britons. We worked with economic modellers Emsi to consider the size of the UK jobs market and the rate at which it is forecast to grow between now and 2027, with a spotlight specifically on Mayoral Authority areas. We have looked at these areas as they have a devolved adult education budget and are, therefore, able to make their own decisions about how and where they spend money on skills development and resolve issues that are uncovered. In these areas we have considered the number of high skilled jobs6 that are needed and how this is likely to change over the coming years. We also polled 5,000 working age people to understand the types of formal education and workplace training they have received, if they believe that the skills they have attained have been useful and give an understanding of how people’s experiences of training and job opportunity vary across the country. 6 High skilled jobs = These are defined as Levels 1-3 occupations on the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) i.e. Managers, Directors and Senior Officials; Professional Occupations; and Associate Professional and Technical Occupations. Missing Millions What we have discovered through this research has been fascinating and highlights the huge challenges we have ahead if we are to unleash the talent of millions of working age people in the UK today. We found that there is a huge opportunity to harness the potential of the underemployed people in society – particularly people from lower socio-economic groups, older workers (those aged 55+), people living outside of London and the South East and part time workers to help us meet the challenges and opportunities that AI and the fourth industrial revolution will bring and ensure the UK remains a global leader in the future.

This study is the first volume of Cedefop research on empowering adults through upskilling and reskilling pathways. It estimates the magnitude of the low-skilled adult population according to a broader conceptualisation which goes beyond educational attainment levels, and considers digital skills, literacy and numeracy, as well as skill loss and skill obsolescence. The study also identifies different subgroups of adults most at risk of being low-skilled, by skill dimension. Better understanding the magnitude of the low-skilled adult population and recognising different and specific target groups within the heterogeneous group of adults with potential for upskilling and reskilling, is crucial to better design and implementation of effective upskilling pathways for those most in need.

This whitepaper, the third of the D2L whitepaper series on the future of work and learning, will focus on the critical questions about lifelong learning to inform and spark debate around one of the central issues of the future of work and learning. The first half of the paper will define and map the current landscape for lifelong learning and briefly recap the growing body of evidence and thought leadership around why it is necessary. The second half will offer an ambitious vision for a future system of lifelong learning as a point of departure, with practical conclusions and recommendations for policymakers, industry leaders, educators, and other stakeholders.

This paper reviews recent studies on human capital and skill formation in the era of rapid aging and technological progress to offer policy suggestions in the field of education and lifelong learning.

Driving the skills agenda: Preparing students for the future is an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report, sponsored by Google. It investigates the extent to which the skills taught in education systems around the world are changing, and whether they meet the needs of employers and society more widely. To shed light on these issues, The EIU convened an advisory board meeting of education experts and conducted four global surveys of senior business executives, teachers and two groups of students, aged 11 to 17 and 18 to 25. Countries represented in the sample include Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Ghana, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE, the UK and the US. Respondents to the business survey hail from 19 sectors, with professional services, manufacturing, IT, financial services and technology especially prominent in the sample.