European Skills/Competences, Qualifications and Oc

ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations) is the European multilingual classification of skills, competences, qualifications and occupations.

ESCO works like a dictionary, describing, identifying and classifying professional occupations and skills relevant for the EU labour market and education and training area and systematically showing the relations between those occupations and skills. It is available in an online portal where its dataset of occupations and skills can be consulted and downloaded free of charge.

Its common reference terminology helps make the European labour market more effective and integrated, and allows the worlds of work and education/training to communicate more effectively with each other.

What is ESCO?

ESCO is:

available in 28 languages (24 EU languages, plus Arabic, Icelandic, Norwegian and Ukrainian)

composed of 2 pillars:

occupations

skills/competences

linked to relevant international classifications and frameworks, e.g.:

available free to all stakeholders in different formats.

ESCO benefits

Using a shared terminology across countries and sectors creates value for wide range of actors:

Jobseekers

Jobseekers can document and describe their knowledge, skills, and competences in a clear and standardised way to match job openings more accurately.

Education and training institutions

Education and training institutions are able to:

use a multilingual reference terminology to describe the learning outcomes of their qualifications, thus making qualifications more transparent,

adapt their programmes based on feedback from the labour market,

work more closely with employment services and career advisors.

Employers

Employers are able to more precisely state the skills and qualifications they expect from employees.

Online job search websites

Europe-wide recruitment databases (like EURES) can match people with jobs in all EU countries, even when CVs and job vacancies are in different languages.

Employment services & careers advisors

Employment services and career advisors can use ESCO to build partnerships between public and private employment services, share labour market  data and offer more accurate career guidance to citizens. 

Employment services can also use ESCO to develop labour market intelligence tools and analyses, improving the way labour market trends are understood and addressed..

Who runs ESCO?

ESCO is managed by the Commission, who is responsible for updating and maintaining the classification.