Essential Skills

Essential skills unlock learning in the classroom, boosting academic outcomes, perseverance and self belief. They halve the likelihood of being out of work, and increase earnings across a lifetime. They even boost wellbeing and life satisfaction.

But access to these skills isn’t fair. And where they are missed, it undermines social mobility, productivity and wellbeing.

We think everyone, at every stage of their lives, should have the opportunities to build them.

Read the research

Our Approach

Pre-School

An image of a school pupil within a circular frame. They are in a class surrounded by friends, working in an exercise book.

School years

An image of a young adult within a circular frame. They are likely in their collage or sixth-form years and they are smiling at the camera proudly.

Apprenticeship,
College & University

An image of a young working professional within a circular frame. They are wearing a trendy professional outfit and glasses whilst looking at a laptop screen in a meeting. They have a relaxed and confident expression.

Early Career

An image of a middle-aged working professional within a circular frame. They are relaxed and smiling.

Mid-career onwards

The product of five years’ cutting-edge research and design, the Skills Builder Universal Framework makes it possible for everyone to teach, learn, and measure essential skills.

The Framework breaks each of the eight skills down into a sequence of steps, supporting an individual's personal development from absolute beginner through to mastery. It takes soft skills and puts rigour behind them.

In the workplace, the Skills Builder Universal Framework can be used to support personal and professional development as well as improve leadership skills of both individuals and their teams. Businesses can also use the Framework in their recruitment practices, as well as in outreach and work experience programmes.

Explore the Framework

Our Reach

Countries

941

Partner
Organisations

1,845,000

Individuals reached

2.7x

Accelerated
Progress

Skills Builder Partnership is a global group of businesses, education institutions, and impact organisations.

We are all committed to using the Skills Builder approach to transform how the world builds essential skills.

Some of our partners

Explore our Impact

Work with us

The Partnership is growing quickly. Join us to benefit from expert support in building and assessing essential skills in your organisation – whether you are a business, education institution or impact organisation.