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Skills Planning

The Skills Planning Model is core to SDS’s role and purpose.

It shows how we aim to improve the response of education, training and careers services to the needs of industry and ensure that people have the best possible chance of succeeding in the world of work.

In order for individuals to achieve their potential, they must be equipped with the skills that Scotland’s economy and its employers need. Achieving this relies on:

  • Building a robust evidence base which articulates the current and future skills demands of Scotland
  • Intensive partnership work, at both a local and national level, to ensure that skills investment is evidence-based and aligned with skills demand
  • Careers Information, Advice and Guidance (CIAG) services that understand and use the evidence base, so that individuals are supported to make informed choices.

Skills Planning ModelSkills Planning Model

Skills Planning Model explained...

The Skills Planning Model aims to ensure that individuals can access a careers service that helps them pursue opportunities important to the economy and its employers, whilst ensuring employers are able to recruit the right people with the right skills at the right time.

We work to understand skills demand through direct employer engagement, input from our engagement with employer groups and insights through partner agencies and data research.

This insight is used to develop regional and sectoral skills investment plans which inform investment in responsive education and training provision, matching learning with demand so people can make informed careers choices and can develop the right skills.

This model requires invested employers who actively engage in the design and delivery of the skills system to develop their current and future workforce; an intelligence-led system where skills design and delivery is agile and responsive to the needs of the economy; and an impactful public sector, maximising its contribution through collaboration, efficiency and innovation.