Skills Builder Partnership highlights huge demand for essential skills

Skills Builder’s Impact Report 2022 showcases their evolving work with employers, educators, impact organisations and beyond. 

Skills Builder Partnership today released its Impact Report 2022, which celebrates the collective impact of the 851 partners that comprise the Partnership across employment, education, and impact organisations.

In the past year, 2.37 million opportunities to build essential skills such as teamwork and problem solving were delivered by partners operating in more than 15 countries, marking a successful end to Skills Builder’s three-year strategy beginning in 2019. 

The Partnership has in particular expanded its work with employers given hugely increased demand for essential skills in the workplace:

• 120 employers, from SMEs and non-profits to large corporates, were part of the Partnership.
• 55 of these were working towards achieving Excellence Standards in building essential skills across outreach, recruitment, and learning & development. 
• 89% of employees on Skills Builder programmes reported that the experience improved their performance, with 67% of managers and talent teams reporting an improvement in team performance.

There has also been significant progress in the Partnership’s work across education and impact organisations:

• 517 schools and colleges were on Skills Builder programmes. 15,669 teachers were trained to teach essential skills and reached 202,497 students, and 408 schools and colleges achieved a Skills Builder Award.
• 214 impact organisations were part of the Partnership, delivering 2.06 million opportunities to build essential skills in areas including employability, sports, the arts, STEM, and university access. 116 programmes by these partners received Skills Builder accreditation to recognise best practice in building essential skills. 
• Meanwhile, Skills Builder’s digital products reported 96,390 active learners registered across 110 countries. 
• Individuals taking part in a Skills Builder programme in an education institution showed a marked increase in their essential skills – developing those skills at twice the rate of their peers.

As it pursues its next three-year strategy, Skills Builder will continue to align employers, educators, and impact organisations to achieve its next goal of delivering 10 million high-quality opportunities to boost essential skills by 2025. 

“As the scale of our work grows, we are making sure we understand the bigger picture too. Our Essential Skills Tracker 2022 showed starkly the huge advantages that higher essential skill levels provide across a lifetime: in access to employment, earnings, and wellbeing,” said Tom Ravenscroft, Founder and CEO of Skills Builder Partnership.

“But it also highlighted that too many people are caught in a skills trap where missing early opportunities to build essential skills puts them on a trajectory that reduces their future career and life opportunities. 

“We know this can change, and I hope you see this Impact Report as a demonstration of just how much can be achieved.”

The full Impact Report and case studies are available here. 

About Skills Builder Partnership 

Skills Builder Partnership is a global network of more than 800 employers, education institutions, and impact organisations that have united around the Skills Builder Universal Framework and six principles of best practice to ensure that everyone builds the essential skills to succeed.

You can learn more about their work and research at skillsbuilder.org. 

Press enquiries: Please contact Eleanor Collard, Communications Associate at Skills Builder Partnership, at [email protected].