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The survey is part of Cedefop’s ongoing study on Microcredentials for labour market education and training examining how these credentials are structured, delivered, and recognised across sectors, with a focus on microcredentials offered by private training providers, professional bodies, sectoral organisations, and public employment services. In some countries and regions, this may also include certain (partial) programmes offered by publicly funded education and training providers that may also offer formal programmes. Microcredentials take many forms — including digital badges, nanodegrees, partial qualifications, and module certificates — but all aim to document and validate learning that happens outside formal education systems.

 Take the survey now

Why focus on microcredentials?

While formal qualifications remain essential, microcredentials offer:

• flexibility to learn at one’s own pace and in smaller units
• targeted training that meets emerging labour market needs
• recognition of skills gained outside formal education and training systems
• inclusive pathways for individuals with limited access to traditional education

Microcredentials are often seen as a way to build personalised learning pathways, allowing individuals to accumulate learning outcomes over time based on their needs and career goals. For employers, they provide a practical way to train staff in specific areas or signal competence in fast-changing fields such as digitalisation or green technologies.

However, their growing diversity raises important questions about standards, quality assurance, recognition, and their role in social inclusion. The stakeholder survey will help address these challenges and support the development of a more transparent, effective microcredential landscape in Europe, improving our understanding of how microcredentials function across countries, sectors, and contexts — especially when they are not formally labelled as such.

Microcredentials are also central to advancing the EU’s Union of Skills vision for an inclusive, flexible, and demand-driven learning across Europe.

The survey: share your expertise

To support this evidence base, CEDEFOP invites experts and stakeholders to contribute to a European stakeholder group survey, which will remain open until 18 July. The survey aims to:

• explore the diversity of microcredentials, focusing on their profile and function outside formal education and training
• emphasise the role of quality assurance and recognition in building trust and value for learners, employers, and systems
• Identify key conditions and elements for developing a European ecosystem of microcredentials

Whether you work with microcredentials regularly or are familiar with a single initiative, your input is essential. By participating, you will help shed light on the practical dimensions of microcredentials and support efforts to make skills more visible, portable, and inclusive.

Take the survey: Microcredentials for labour market education and training

CEDEFOP’s Skills-OVATE (Online Vacancy Analysis Tool for Europe) provides real-time insight into these shifts, using hundreds of millions of online job advertisements (OJAs) to identify trends in occupations, skills and sectors across 32 countries. National authorities, training providers and employment services can use Skills-OVATE to:

• Spot skill gaps and anticipate emerging green profiles
• Align training curricula and qualification design
• Inform career guidance and job matching services

The data also sheds light on how the green and digital transitions often go together—AI and data management are increasingly embedded in green occupations, underscoring the need for integrated skills strategies in support of twin transition.

Exploring green demand across occupations, sectors and regions

The tool includes dedicated dashboards that allow users to explore the greenness and green pervasiveness of occupations, sectors and regions. ‘Green pervasiveness’ refers to the presence of green skills in job ads, while ‘greenness’ reflects how intensively these skills are embedded in specific roles or sectors.

Users can apply filters by year, country, sector or occupation to identify where green skills are growing, where they are less common and how these trends evolve over time. The data is drawn from diverse online sources, including public employment portals and private job platforms and structured according to international classifications (ISCO, NACE, NUTS-2).

Key findings from the tool:

• Sectors with the highest pervasiveness of green skills:

  - Construction

  - Mining and quarrying  

  - Electricity gas, steam and air conditioning supply

  - Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities 

  - Technical, engineering and R&D

• Among the top 50 green skills identified in job ads are:

  - Corporate and social responsibility

  - Environmental engineering 

  - Green computing 

  - Natural history 

  - Chemistry and environmental science

• Greenness varies across Europe’s regions, with national labour markets in the west and north showing the highest concentrations of green skills.

Contributing to EU Green Week 2025 goals

As EU Green Week 2025 promotes circular solutions and greener futures, Cedefop positions Skills-OVATE as a vital tool for policy and practice. Developed in collaboration with Eurostat, Skills-OVATE turns labour market data into meaningful intelligence. New use cases for Skills-OVATE analysis in frontline green transition sectors such as energy and construction can be developed in the future to strengthen Europe’s ability to deliver on its climate, carbon, environment and sustainability goals and targets. 

In line with the Commission’s broader efforts under the European Skills Agenda, expanding NQFs to include learning beyond formal education is a critical step toward making all learning visible, valued and portable. This expansion:

• Improves transparency, making diverse qualifications more understandable and comparable
• Enables mobility of learners and workers across sectors, borders, and learning pathways
• Supports lifelong learning, including reskilling and upskilling throughout people’s careers
• Advances EU policy priorities, frameworks such as the Union of Skills, the European Pillar of Social Rights and the Union of Equality
• Deepens the connection between education and labour markets, offering stronger alignment with labour market needs and real-world experience

Peer learning in action: a pan-European conversation

These developments took centre stage at a Peer Learning Activity held in Warsaw on 8–9 April 2025, organised by the European Commission in cooperation with Cedefop and hosted by Poland as part of its contribution to the EU Presidency. The event brought together policymakers and experts from across EQF (European Qualifications Framework) countries to explore how best to integrate non-formal and informal qualifications into national qualifications framework.

Notably, inclusion in an NQF is increasingly seen by both labour market actors and NQF/EQF users as a signal of quality and reliability. Discussions also underscored the following benefits:

• For employers: improved clarity and trust in qualifications used in recruitment
• For education and training providers: increased visibility, access to public funding, and stronger alignment with labour market needs
• For learners: smoother transitions, wider recognition, and more trusted, flexible learning pathways
• For systems: a stronger foundation for social dialogue and policy coherence across sectors

While momentum is building, several persistent challenges continue to slow wider implementation, including:

• Low awareness among employers and learners of what NQFs offer
• Insufficient communication strategies to showcase the value of inclusion
• Administrative burden and rigid approval processes for providers
• The challenge of balancing robust quality assurance with the flexibility needed to attract diverse learning actors

Still, progress is tangible. According to recent (yet unpublished) data from Cedefop, 10 Member States have made significant strides since 2022, with many introducing new procedures and, in some cases, including non-formal qualifications for the first time.

Looking Ahead: Frameworks Fit for the Future

As Europe’s demographic pressures mount and industries transform at speed, the capacity to recognise skills acquired outside classrooms will be crucial for maintaining competitiveness, inclusion, and social cohesion.

Opening up NQFs isn’t a marginal technical adjustment—it is a strategic policy lever. One that supports lifelong learning, fuels cross-border mobility, and helps match the right talent with the right opportunities.

Cedefop, the Commission, and Member States will continue to strengthen efforts on this area because success in the future labour market won’t depend only on skills, but also on their visibility, relevance and recognition. 

The latest policy brief Towards EU priorities in VET 2021–25 progress: Insights from monitoring and analysis jointly published by Cedefop and the European Training Foundation (ETF) tracks how far countries have progressed in turning these commitments into reality.

Based on over 500 national policy measures – drawn from national implementation plans (NIPs) – from EU Member States, Norway, Iceland, and five candidate countries (Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Türkiye), this analysis provides the most comprehensive picture yet of how VET reforms are taking root across Europe. As implementation accelerates through 2023–25, the brief identifies key areas where national action is converging: modernisation of VET offer, digitalisation, inclusion, lifelong learning, and enhanced quality assurance.

Importantly, the publication features jointly the developments in both EU member states and the five candidate countries. 

“In the Enlargement context, this shared exercise with EU Member States ensures ownership, peer learning and reform alignment that support both transformation and accession,” said ETF Director Pilvi Torsti.

From planning to implementation

Progress is visible. From expanding work-based learning to increasing lifelong learning opportunities, the report highlights how countries are investing in change. New legal frameworks, strategic plans and practical measures are helping countries shift from planning to delivery.

Yet challenges remain. Cross-border mobility, system-level monitoring, and the ‘green upskilling’ as part of VET teachers’ continuous professional development need stronger momentum. Moreover, while many initiatives benefit from EU funding, the sustainability of reforms beyond project cycles depends on national ownership and investment.

“Countries are moving from promise to progress,” said Jürgen Siebel, Executive Director of Cedefop. “But real impact will require ensuring continuity, addressing uneven implementation, and integrating lessons into future national and EU strategies.”

Beyond tracking reforms, the brief lays the groundwork for shaping the post-2025 EU VET strategy and the evolving Union of Skills agenda. It reinforces the importance of coordinated action, social partner engagement, and aligning education with fast-changing labour market needs.

Europe’s VET systems are transforming – becoming more flexible, digital, green and learner-centred. Reforms must now translate into lasting structures, opportunities and outcomes for all.

That urgency and opportunity came into clear focus at Cedefop’s high-level event, Shaping Learning and Skills in Europe. Held in Brussels, the event convened over 300 participants from across the EU—policymakers, social partners, researchers, and practitioners—around a shared vision for inclusive, future-ready vocational education and training (VET), learning, and skills ecosystems.
From the outset, the event captured the collaborative spirit driving European change.

"We are entering a new era where learning must be lifelong, lifewide, and future-fit", said Cedefop Executive Director Juergen Siebel. "This event shows that Europe is ready to work together to make that happen."

In her address, Li Andersson, Member of the European Parliament and Chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, pointed out: “the work of Cedefop highlights that education is not just a stepping stone to employment, it is the basis of resilience, participation and purpose”.

Sessions underscored the urgent need to expand adult learning, embed skills intelligence across policymaking, and shift societal perceptions of VET. The atmosphere was one of urgency—but also optimism, powered by a sense that Europe is moving from vision to implementation.

“Cedefop has successfully kept vocational education and training, skills, and learning at the forefront of the EU agenda across Member States and successive policy cycles—a testament to their enduring relevance in shaping Europe’s future”, commented Mario Nava, Director-General, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

Cedefop’s convening power was on full display. With over five decades of expertise and a leading role in skills intelligence, the agency has become a trusted hub for coordination and innovation. By bringing together diverse voices from across Member States, sectors, and levels of governance, Cedefop reaffirmed its central role in shaping Europe’s skills agenda.

The event marked a shift in gear, showing a Europe that is not only aware of its challenges, but united in addressing them. “We’re not just talking about skills anymore—we’re shaping them, together,” concluded Juergen Siebel.