Working Futures: Five decades of trying to anticipate changing skills needs

In IER’s latest contribution to the Skills England Research Seminar Series, in June, Prof. Rob Wilson presented ‘Working Futures: Five Decades of Trying to Anticipate Changing Skills Needs.’

In 2025 the Warwick Institute for Employment Research (IER) will have been engaged in skills forecasting for 50 years.

The presentation reflected on the rationale for producing detailed, quantitative, labour market projections and why they are still needed. It drew on five decades of research, focusing on the UK, but also covering work at international level, including Europe and the USA.

Working Futures is the badge that has been used to describe the IER’s labour market projections since 2004. The most recent forecasts have been published as part of the Nuffield funded Skills Imperative 2035 project.

Rob has led IER’s work on labour market forecasting since the 1980s, pioneering the development of pan-European skill projections funded by Cedefop (the European agency responsible for vocational education and training), and acted as a consultant on such issues for other international organisations such as the ILO, UNESCO and the ETF.