New research reveals for the first time a complete picture of how adults across the UK are building and using their essential skills – and where the gaps are.
The Essential Skills Tracker is now live. Click the button below to read the report and explore the interactive data.
To develop our analysis, we collaborated with YouGov to survey more than 2,200 adults who completed an assessment against the Skills Builder Universal Framework.
This analysis will be repeated every year to generate new insights that support the work of the Partnership, create grounded policy recommendations, and track our progress towards our overarching mission: to ensure that one day, everyone builds the essential skills to succeed.
Don't forget to also scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for extra information on our upcoming Partnership Day, where we'll discuss collaboration between key sector stakeholders and highlight the Tracker's findings further.
Read the research and explore the data
You can find the video of the launch here.
And - keep scrolling for some of the key findings...
Beginning with the positives: we found a wage premium of £3,900-£5,900 associated with higher levels of essential skills - a lifetime earning difference of up to £280,000.
Individuals with higher levels of essential skills are around 50% less likely to be out of work or education.
The UK public highly values these skills: 86% believe them to be important for overcoming adversity, 81% say they boost career progression, and 71% link them to better academic performance.
However, the distribution of essential skills is far from equitable. Individuals from more advantaged backgrounds have higher levels of essential skills.
Although the majority of workers want the opportunities to develop essential skills, only a small minority gets the chance to do so via structured learning at work.
There's more evidence of inequitability. Regions of the North and East of England all reported lower skill levels than London, the South, and Midlands.
There is also evidence of a "skills trap", where individuals with lower essential skill levels go on to earn less and continue to lack opportunities to develop their essential skills.
To both bridge the gap and escape the trap, the Tracker recommends that the UK scales the volume of high-quality opportunities to build essential skills in education, through impact interventions, and in employment.
Partnership Day 2022
Each year since we launched the Skills Builder Framework in 2018, we have run a Partnership Day to bring together the different strands of the Partnership.
After the past couple of Partnership Days have taken place online, this year we're hoping to see our partners in person! Join us at the Allen & Overy Headquarters in London, on May 18 09:00-14:00 BST, for a day packed full of networking and workshops from our different teams.
We'll also be highlighting the Tracker further, and outlining our recommendations for delivering high quality opportunities to boost essential skills.
Please note: Partnership Day in-person admisison is exclusive to partners of the Skills Builder Partnership or invitees. To attend it online, choose the 'Virtual Admission' option - this is virtual streaming available to everyone.
