Skills Data Playbook: How can data help with challenges related to skills and competences?

The transformation of working life is gaining more and more momentum and speed. The climate crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have led us to make giant strides in developing the skills required for digitalisation and the green transition – and they have greatly increased the need for such skills. At the same time, our demographic change and people retiring at an accelerating rate are challenging the whole education system and working life.

Exceptionally rapid changes in society require new ways of anticipating need for skills.

In spring 2020, Technology Industries of Finland started to construct a new study on what kind of expertise technology industry companies would need. We did not settle for a traditional survey but we decided to harness technology in our assistance to anticipate needs for experts and skills. This gave rise to a series of experiments based on skills data.

The skills data analysed using artificial intelligence played a key role in enabling us to produce a more comprehensive and detailed picture of the need for skills in the field. The keys to success included not only a functional artificial intelligence solution and our own expert work but also the extensive involvement of companies and our partners in the interpretation of skills data.

Bold new initiatives must be taken to anticipate skills requirements. By making better use of the information available on competence and skills needs in society, we can develop anticipation of skills needs based on modern data analysis over different time horizons.

When repeated regularly, data-based anticipation of skills needs will provide us with a picture of the situation that is much more up to date than that produced using the current methods, showing us what kind of expertise is needed in a particular industry or geographical area at any given time.

Skills data describes people's skills, the competence needs of organisations and the competence offerings of educational institutions.

Skills data describes people's skills, the competence needs of organisations and the competence offerings of educational institutions. In practice, skills data can be found, for example, on employees' CVs, companies’ job adverts and course guides.

Skills data can act as a “medium” between different actors.

• Better matches are found between experts and jobs.
• Learners can find right kind of learning opportunities and educational offerings.
• Training can better meet the anticipated competence needs.
• Society can allocate its resources to the right place.
• Companies are better able to develop their competence and talents.

These observations gave rise to the Skills Data Playbook, which brings together our thoughts on competence data, competence policy and the experiments we have conducted around them with our partners. Technology Industries of Finland and its partners want to make these findings available to society.

Skills Data Playbook (pdf), updated 10/2023

For further information:

Leena Pöntynen, Director, Skills and Competence, Technology Industries of Finland, firstname.lastname@techind.fi
Touko Apajalahti, senior advisor, higher education policy, Technology Industries of Finland firstname.lastname@techind.fi