We’re excited to announce major enhancements to our Skills Forecasting tool, which helps users explore how workforce qualifications change under different training and demand scenarios.  

What do the forecasts show? 

The future workforce will be less qualified 

Across all the 40+ scenarios we’ve now modelled – the key takeaway is that without major intervention, food and fibre workforce is set to be significantly less well qualified in future. Looking at the proportion of the workforce holding a relevant qualification, the Skills Forecasting tool shows a drop under almost all scenarios. By 2050 we expect to see a decline in the proportion of the food and fibre workforce holding any relevant qualifications of 10-30%. 

It would take a major policy intervention to even maintain the current level of skills

We have modelled up a significant number of different interventions in the vocational education system to see what impact they would have on the level of skills in the workforce. These include changes to the affordability of training, regulatory change requiring trained staff, target setting, changes in priorities or ways of delivering training.  

Across all of these, only the most major policy changes such as making training free or requiring a significant number of qualified staff due to regulatory change would the levels of qualified people in the workforce maintain ground. Almost none of the interventions would boost the overall level of qualified people in the workforce from its current levels. 

What enhancements were made to the current release? 

We have been refining and improving the modelling over the last year, incorporating industry feedback and technical improvements and building new scenarios.  

New ways to explore training impacts and scenarios: 

• Modular micro-credential pathways: A new scenario exploring what happens if key entry-level food and fibre qualifications are replaced with four sequential micro-credentials. 

• Alternative workforce-demand forecasting using Shared Data Platform GDP and occupation trends. 

• New training scenario permutations allowing users to explore the results of changes to on-job and pre-employment training. 

Technical enhancements: 

• More comprehensive training data – including micro-credentials, provider-based training while employed, and improved capture of pre-employment qualifications. 

• Better capture of relevant qualifications and credentials – providing a clearer view of which qualifications matter most for each industry and for different roles.   

What’s coming next? 

More enhancements are on the way, expected to roll out from early 2026. These include a feature to test profitability impacts of training interventions, a scenario estimating the minimum training needed to maintain current qualification levels, and ethnicity-focused workforce and training scenarios.  

Explore the tool here: Skills Forecasting – Workforce Skills Shared Data Platform