Czech Republic retains top spot on EU skills ranking

12th March 2020

Today the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) released the latest version of the European Skills Index (ESI), which allows policy makers to compare and contrast different skills systems across the EU.

The tool allows policy makers to learn best practice from other Member States, by basing decisions on the relative performance of their skills systems. In this way they can ensure that training and education provision leads to the attainment of skills and qualifications that match the needs of employers.

Key findings of the latest ESI:

  • The Czech Republic retains its highest ranked position, while Italy falls into the lowest position.
  • Spain has seen a very good improvement in the ESI score, but it still has a long way to catch up with other Member States.
  • The ESI scores show that there is still significant room for improvement in the skills system of each Member State. Even Member States with the top-performing skills systems (i.e. Czech Republic, Finland and Slovenia) have room to improve further different aspects of their skills system (as measured by the indicators included in ESI).
  • Finland, Switzerland and Estonia are countries where most good practices for Skills Development are to be found.
  • Switzerland, Iceland and Sweden could share their good practices in Skills Activation with other Member States. This pillar measures countries’ transition from education to employment and labour market activity rates for different groups of the population.
  • The Czech Republic, Malta and Luxembourg have the best performance in terms of skills matching. Estonia can learn from Luxembourg about how to match skills with the right kind of jobs, while Luxembourg can learn from Estonia about how to improve skills utilisation indicators.

This release does not bring any methodological changes compared to the 2018 European Skills Index. In addition to updating the indicators with the latest available data in September 2019, Cedefop has expanded the geographical scope to include three new countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland).