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The EU-wide “Pact for Skills”, adopted about five years ago, aims to facilitate public and private organisations and encourage them to make concrete commitments to upskilling employment forces and reskilling adults. The Pact is one of the flagship actions of the general European Skills Agenda; through these years, the pact has proved to be a valuable and supporting initiative towards the continental up- and re-skilling efforts. Thus, recent “Pact for skills annual-2025 report” has shown sufficient progress in evolving “education-employment” policies.
Background
The Pact for Skills was launched in November 2020 as a flagship action of the European Skills Agenda. It brings together public and private organisations to enhance the skills of the European workforce and support Europe’s adjustment to a rapidly evolving labour market. The Pact is anchored in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan contributing to achieving its target of at least 60% of adults participating in training annually by 2030.
In March 2025, the EU has launched the so-called “Union of Skills” to further reinforce the crucial role of the Pact in upskilling and reskilling workers in strategic sectors to support European competitiveness, resilience and social cohesion.
The Pact’s Large-scale Skills Partnerships (LSPs) have a key role to play in this and have committed to training 27% of the workforce by 2030 within each sector to contribute to the objectives of the Union of Skills. This figure represents over 30 million working age individuals in Europe by 2030.
Since the Pact’s launch about six years ago, the Pact’s community has grown to an estimated 4,000 organisations including public, private, and civil society entities such as national, regional, and local authorities, companies, social partners, cross-industry and sectoral organisations,
chambers of commerce, education and training providers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and employment services.
The Pact for Skills Annual Report represents an assessment of the Pact’s progress in 2025 and its primary achievements. It highlights the key achievements of 2025 and outlines the challenges and future opportunities for the Pact to achieve its objectives in upskilling and
reskilling Europe.
The Pact’s involvements
The Pact’s membership includes employment and education providers’ organisations from all EU-27 states, as well as from candidate or associated countries. All members of the Pact sign up to the Charter and agree to uphold its four key principles:
= promoting a culture of lifelong learning for all,
= building strong skill partnerships,
= monitoring skill supply/demand and anticipating skill needs, and
= working against discrimination and for gender equality and equal opportunities.
Reference to: https://pact-for-skills.ec.europa.eu/index_en
The organisations participating in the Pact for Skills are committed to upskilling and reskilling 25 million people by 2030.
In the Union of Skills, the EU’s strategy is to boost skills development and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness; hence, the Commission called on national, regional and local authorities, companies, social partners, sectoral organisations, chambers of commerce, education and training providers, as well as corresponding employment services to double their efforts.
The yearly-2025 Pact for Skills Annual Survey took place in the beginning of 2026: there were collected over 1,5 thousand responses from pact’s member states from the EU and 11 candidates or EEA countries.
More on the Pact of Skills in: https://pact-for-skills.ec.europa.eu/document/download/84378a3e-3380-488f-b35a-9bd97a024ab1_en?filename=Annual%20Report%202025_FINAL.pdf
Regional and large-skills partnerships
The annual survey also highlighted the effectiveness of Regional Skills Partnerships (RSP), with 93% demonstrating an improvement in aligning regional skills supply and demand, and 86% facilitating the transition to a green and digital economy.
A notable example is the regional skills partnership in Thessaly, Greece, which provides workers with the necessary skills to succeed in areas such as smart agriculture and renewable energy.
Furthermore, about 80 percent of the mentioned RSPs contributed to local economic growth, as seen in initiatives like EURADRIA in Italy and Slovenia, which enhances training and employment opportunities for workers in various sectors.
Additionally, in 2025, Large-Scale Skills Partnerships (LSPs) members trained an average of 26% of their workforce, demonstrating a strong commitment to accelerating skills development. The Pact’s Large-Scale Skills Partnerships are collaborative initiatives across industrial ecosystems. They bring together key stakeholders to invest in workforce upskilling and reskilling.
Reference to Commission’s press-release at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_829
Achievements and benefits
Since 2022, the members of the Pact revealed the following achievements by the end of 2025:
= 6.1 million people benefited (compared to 2.6 million in 2024),
= €960 million was invested (compared to €650.4 million in 2024),
= 134,500 stakeholders joined forces (compared to 42,100 in 2024), and
= 95,500 training courses were updated or developed (compared to 47,800 in 2024).
In the framework of the European Year of Skills, the Large-scale Skills Partnerships, LSPs have collectively pledged to train an average of 25% of the workforce within each LSP’s sector.
Involvement in a skills partnership also has had a positive impact on the up- and re-skilling efforts in the member states: thus, the LSPs reported being involved in the following sectoral partnerships: = improved skills monitoring and anticipation in their sectors (79%); = enhanced the workers’ quality (77%) and increased the volumes (74%) of up- and re-skilling activities; = created more inclusive up- and re-skilling in their sectors (76%).
Source and citations from: https://pact-for-skills.ec.europa.eu/document/download/6659a499-c808-426a-b01b-c7adf4b7bef1_en?filename=One-pager_2024_FINAL_05.05.pdf
All members of the Pact can benefit from three dedicated services in the following “hubs”:
= through the “Networking Hub”, members can find partners and relevant EU tools (like Europass, Skills Panorama, EURES and the European Network of Public Employment Services); they can also promote their activities.
= the “Knowledge Hub” organises webinars, seminars and peer learning activities for members. It also provides updates on EU policies and instruments, as well as information on projects, tools, and best practices.
= in the “Guidance Hub”, members can find information about EU and national funding opportunities, and guidance to partnering with national and regional authorities.
Source: https://pact-for-skills.ec.europa.eu/index_en