Survey of Adult Skills 2023 (PIAAC): Low skills thematic report
24 March 2026
The Survey of Adult Skills is part of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) led by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), measuring literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving skills in adults aged 16-65.
A second cycle was carried out in 31 countries during 2022 and 2023, updating the picture of adult skills from the first survey cycle, held in 2012.
The 2023 survey found around 20 per cent of adults in England (aged 16-65) had low basic skills in literacy, numeracy, or both. This thematic report on low-skilled adults explores who England’s low‑skilled adults are and how this has changed over time and examines how low skills relate to education and employment.
Key Findings
- Over half of all low-skilled adults are now aged 45 and over
- The proportion of adults aged 24 years old and below with low skills in literacy has almost halved since 2012 and has also reduced for numeracy, suggesting that education reforms have had an impact on skills
- The employment outlook for low‑skilled adults remains challenging, with only 55-56 per cent in work in 2023, compared with 75 per cent of adults overall and 61-64 per cent across other countries in the study
- Women continue to have lower numeracy skills than men
- Adults born outside the UK, or who learnt English as an additional language are overrepresented in the low skills group. However, they are less likely to have low skills in England than in many comparable countries, including France, Italy and the United States