Skills Imperative 2035: Creating a system of lifelong learning to provide the essential skills for tomorrow's workforce
25 November 2025
This is the final report from The Skills Imperative 2035 programme, a five-year programme funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
This research programme has investigated how job and skill requirements are likely to change in future, and how the education and skills systems, and employers, need to respond to ensure that change makes everyone, not just a few, better off.
This final report brings together evidence gathered throughout the programme, which can be found in Working Papers 1 to 8 (and accompanying technical reports).
This report builds on previous research for the programme which showed that technological, demographic, environmental and economic changes will continue to disrupt the labour market, impacting both the jobs that exist and the skills needed to do these jobs.
It shows that changes in the labour market are now happening faster than previously projected, by as much as three times for some occupations. If this trend continues through to 2035, there could be between one and three million fewer jobs in ‘high-risk’ declining occupations (e.g. administrative, secretarial, customer service and machine operators). This carries threats, not only for workers in these occupations, but also for young people who leave education without the skills and qualifications typically required to enter high-skilled growth occupations.
Greater focus is needed not only on supporting more workers in high-risk occupations to reskill and change careers, but also on ensuring more young people leave education with the qualifications and skills needed to compete for entry-level roles in high growth areas.
This requires a system of lifelong learning that nurtures the development of individuals’ skills throughout early childhood, education and work. In the final report from The Skills Imperative 2035, we elaborate on the challenge that lies ahead, before setting out the collective response required from government, employers and the education system.
Key Findings
- Technological change, coupled with demographic, environmental and economic changes, will continue to disrupt the labour market, impacting the jobs that exist and the skills needed to do these jobs.
- Across the labour market, some skills are becoming more important, while others are declining. A set of skills – which we call Essential Employment Skills (EES) – which are already heavily utilised today will become even more vital across the whole economy over the next decade. The skills are: collaboration; communication; creative thinking; information literacy; organising, planning and prioritising; and problem solving and decision making.
- Whilst we previously suggested over a million jobs in declining occupations could be lost between 2021 and 2035, actual employment changes since 2021 show this decline is happening faster than we previously projected, by as much as three times for some groups. If this trend continues through to 2035, there could be between one and three million fewer jobs in ‘high-risk’ occupations (e.g., administrative, secretarial, customer service and machine operators).
- Whilst previous periods of change have displaced workers before without creating large-scale unemployment, it may be different in future - examples of lower-skilled but growing occupations are becoming increasingly scarce, limiting the opportunities for displaced low-skill workers, and significant mismatches between the skills and qualifications of workers in declining occupations and the job demands of growing occupations pose major barriers to transitions.
- Greater focus is needed not just on supporting more existing workers in high-risk occupations to reskill and change careers, but also on ensuring more young people leave education with the qualifications and skills they need to compete for entry-level roles in high growth areas of the economy.
It is vital that the collective response to the future skills imperative seeks to:
- Ensure all young people leave education with a strong base of the ‘essential employment skills’ needed in both work and life - Across the labour market, some skills are becoming more important, while others are declining. EES will be vital for workers to thrive in the future, but they are peripheral in the current education system. These skills must be explicitly recognised and developed, supported by a common skills framework that schools and colleges can use.
- Equip more disadvantaged young people for growth occupations by refocusing policy and funding on disadvantage – Inequalities in young people’s skill development emerge early on and become wider and more entrenched over time, shaping later employment outcomes. Yet, until recently, the policy focus on disadvantage had declined sharply; incentives for nurseries, schools and colleges to focus on disadvantaged children had declined; family support services have been radically reduced; and it has got harder for disadvantaged families to access high-quality early education and childcare. Greater focus on disadvantage is required.
- Ensure more young people develop the technical skills typically required by growth occupations – The tertiary education needs to offer young people a clear and coherent network of learning pathways into growth occupations, setting more young people on a path towards growth occupations.
- Reinvigorate the adult skills system - Public and private investment in adult learning has fallen sharply since 2010, leaving the system underfunded and fragmented. Adults face financial and time barriers to training, while employers often underinvest. Reinvigorating adult skills should be a national priority, with public funding restored closer to early 2010s levels.
- Incentivise closer cooperation in the tertiary education system - Clearer pathways into growth occupations require a more integrated tertiary education system, with closer cooperation between educators, government and employers - national frameworks and incentives play an important role in promoting this.
- Employers play a pivotal role - Employers also play a vital role, not just by developing people’s skills, but also by anticipating future skills needs, redesigning roles, fully utilising their workers’ skills, and facilitating internal moves.