Developing Occupational Skills Profiles for the UK: A Feasibility Study
How can we improve our understanding of the skills required by employers and used by individuals in the UK labour market? This technical report examines how we could potentially exploit comprehensive occupational-level information collected and used within the US via the Occupational Information Network system (O*NET). The report describes the approach the authors took to match information from O*NET to UK Standard Occupational Classification codes and test the feasibility of the information being used in a UK context.
Developing Occupational Skills Profiles for the UK: A Feasibility Study (PDF, 1.2 Mb) – Evidence report 44
Published February 2012
Skills are a major policy priority both nationally and internationally. Yet we only have imperfect measures of the skills available and in use in employment in the UK today. This report explores the feasibility of the development of a new and comprehensive set of detailed, multi-dimensional occupational skills profiles for the UK which describe the skills required by employers and used by individuals in the modern workplace.
The US-based Occupational Information Network (O*NET) system provides almost 250 measures of skills, abilities, work activities, training, work context and job characteristics for each of around 1,000 different US occupations (based on a modified version of the US Standard Occupational Classification), with information gathered from both job incumbents through standardised survey questionnaires, as well as assessments by professional job analysts.
This study examines how we could potentially exploit comprehensive occupational-level information collected and used within the US via the Occupational Information Network system (O*NET). The report describes the approach the authors took to match information from O*NET to UK Standard Occupational Classification codes to enable it to be used in a UK context. Overall, the authors believe that the process is robust, and could be built upon further in a multitude of ways by organisations who have an interest in skills, and are concerned about their importance and impact for individual labour market outcomes as well as macro-economic performance.
