Skills in context: what can the UK learn from Australia's skill ecosystem projects?

For over two decades, UK skills policy has focused on boosting the supply of skilled or qualified labour. Despite significant progress on this front, British productivity continues to lag behind that of major competitors, while policy makers increasingly confront the challenge of ensuring that skills are utilised effectively in the workplace. With policy in this area relatively underdeveloped in the UK, this article considers the lessons that might be drawn from Australia's recent experiment with skill ecosystem projects, which are explicitly aimed at helping organisations to enhance their capacity to develop and deploy skills.