The Evolving SkillsFuture Movement: A Decade of Workforce Transformation
by Tan Kok Yam and Dilys Boey
Last updated 20 July 2026
The SkillsFuture movement seeks to equip our workforce for economic growth and our workers for career advancement. These objectives are clear but never static: they continually evolve with changing economic conditions and external pressures. Contemporary challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and transformative trends like artificial intelligence underscore the need for an adaptive approach capable of supporting increasingly broad and dynamic goals.
What began under the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) a decade ago has since evolved into a coordinated effort along two fronts, when WDA restructured into SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) and Workforce Singapore (WSG) in 2016. SSG has since further advanced individual skills development and training, while WSG has continued the former WDA's mandate in promoting employer-centric reskilling, employment, and career development initiatives.
There has been substantial progress in building the foundation of the movement. In the next phase, there will be greater emphasis on training quality and relevance, ensuring that the skills and training landscape delivers meaningful outcomes for both workers and employers. Since 2018, approximately 500,000 individuals have participated in MOE/SSG supported programmes yearly. In addition, the number of employers engaged in training has doubled from 12,000 in 2018 to 24,000 in 2024. Additionally, since 2022, the large majority of trainees have reported improved work performance after SSG-supported training.
Over the past ten years, we have invested significantly in building the capacity and capabilities of our continuing education and training ecosystem. This has been a key enabler of the SkillsFuture movement. In particular, the Institutes of Higher Learning have embraced continuing education and training as a critical part of their mission. Building on our strong foundation of education in the schooling years, we are now also preparing graduates and workers for lifelong learning and skills upgrading, to maintain relevance across longer working lifespans.
— Lim Wan Yong, Permanent Secretary (Education), Ministry of Education
Given the rapid pace at which skills evolve, our programmes and our training supply must be continually responsive to market needs. Thankfully, with technological and data advances, we can make better use of more data — encompassing job postings, applications, and résumés — to identify potential shortfalls and more effective responses to skills and training needs. Historical challenges in securing employer engagement have also diminished through increased awareness and stakeholder buy-in.
While the SkillsFuture movement has successfully established mindshare, it remains predominantly associated with training, despite having jobs and employment as integral components since its inception. Moving forward, the movement aims to re-emphasise the jobs and employment aspects, alongside the skills development and training elements.
Key to this shift is the close alignment between skills development and employment functions to create mutually reinforcing outcomes. By tightening what we call the "jobs-skills nexus", we can now foster lifelong learning while enabling tangible employment outcomes that individuals and employers expect from skills investments.
The first decade of the SkillsFuture movement has been transformative for Singapore. It has instilled a culture of lifelong learning among Singaporeans and reinforced the importance of employers investing in their workers to build a more skilled workforce. These efforts have strengthened Singapore's competitiveness in a rapidly evolving global economy.
— Ng Chee Khern, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Manpower
Aligning Skills and Employment Outcomes
Indeed, these objectives are interconnected: providing individuals with the skills to access quality job opportunities and progress in their careers while ensuring companies can access the capabilities needed for growth. Success demands a structured approach that recognises these interdependencies.
As the SkillsFuture movement evolves beyond culture-building and mindset transformation, it is increasingly addressing the need for structural shifts within organisations. This includes encouraging employers to redesign jobs to meet business needs, upskill and reskill its workforce, chart career pathways for their workers and restructure promotion, compensation, and incentive frameworks. Such initiatives would have been premature a decade ago, when the requisite conceptual frameworks and systematic methodologies for deconstructing jobs and linking tasks to skills were not yet established.
Everyone has a role to play, as we continue to deepen the culture of lifelong learning in Singapore. Individuals need to take ownership of their lifelong learning journey. Employers need to better identify and articulate their skills needs, invest in skills development of their workforce, and recognise and reward skills and competencies. Training institutions must continually refresh their training curriculum and innovate their programmes to meet these industry needs. Ultimately, the SkillsFuture movement must bring benefits to Singaporeans, in lifelong learning and continued employability.
— Lim Wan Yong, Permanent Secretary (Education), Ministry of Education
Today, these efforts still represent frontier work globally. Organisations worldwide are grappling with the challenge of articulating roles not as traditional occupations but through constituent tasks and associated skill requirements, in ways that enable practical application by employers. Successful implementation would significantly expand hiring pools by shifting focus from historical experience and occupational categories to demonstrated competencies. This approach would enhance employers' confidence in workforce investments through clearer return-on-investment projections while serving as a mechanism for talent attraction and retention.
The broader trends of digitalisation and artificial intelligence suggest that current occupations will likely evolve rather than disappear, fundamentally altering required skill sets. Such transformations must be examined through both employment and skills perspectives. This dual lens approach will allow workers to better understand emerging role requirements and develop targeted upgrading strategies to enhance their career prospects and outcomes.
These goals have consistently guided the movement's direction. The next wave of innovation lies in more deliberate coordination between agencies and stakeholders to address these challenges in a front-facing manner. For example, when individuals consult Skills Advisors regarding appropriate courses, advisors equipped with comprehensive career knowledge can facilitate more informed decision-making and strategic upskilling planning.
The pace of change is accelerating rapidly, driven by shorter economic and technological cycles. As we look ahead, the movement must now focus on ensuring that skills acquisition enables Singaporeans to build fulfilling careers. As Singaporeans upskill and seek out new opportunities, employers must also be encouraged to hire based on skills, and be more intentional in developing their workforce. Empowering Singaporeans to proactively manage their careers, and helping employers take a skills-first approach to hiring and workforce development is what we aim to drive through the newly launched Career Health SG initiative.
— Ng Chee Khern, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Manpower
This approach aligns with the original spirit of the SkillsFuture movement: enabling individuals to take ownership and drive their own career and skills journeys. This may encompass advancement within current roles or transitions across different positions. The next phase aims to enhance individual agency through better information, improved tools, and integrated advisory services. Concurrent efforts will focus on helping employers better understand and use skills-based language in organisational planning and human resource management.
From Government Programme to National Movement
To succeed in the next bound, the SkillsFuture movement requires three fundamental enabling factors: strategic information provision, capability building, and targeted funding mechanisms.
The government can signpost by disseminating information that enables both individuals and employers to make more informed decisions. The objective is to minimise information asymmetries and provide appropriate guidance to avoid decision paralysis. This calls for careful curation to help stakeholders accurately assess training value and make strategic choices aligned with emerging market demands.
When companies are ready to adopt skills-first practices and invest in workforce development but lack implementation knowledge, the government can also provide the necessary frameworks and toolkits to help them progress towards their goals. This capability-building function ensures that good intentions translate into action and practical outcomes.
While funding is the most evident form of government intervention, subsidies must go beyond mere financial support. Funding mechanisms should serve as incentive and priority-signaling mechanisms to influence decisions and behaviours in the desired directions.
As public officers, all of us must also be lifelong learners, and continually pick up new skills and capabilities that help us to do our work better. Now that the Public Service is using a Competency-Driven Growth framework, colleagues can more clearly identify and work on the competencies needed for their current job requirements, as well as prepare themselves for future work opportunities. One recent development is how AI has fundamentally transformed our work, similar to other sectors in the economy. All of us can and should learn to use AI better so that we can serve Singapore and Singaporeans better.
— Lim Wan Yong, Permanent Secretary (Education), Ministry of Education
The challenge lies in avoiding excessive government intervention that might discourage non-governmental participation, which could undermine the vital sense of shared ownership essential to this national agenda. Over the next decade, emphasis must shift towards fostering whole-of-society engagement in the SkillsFuture movement, building capabilities that unlock greater non-government contribution.
The conceptualisation of SkillsFuture as a movement rather than a programme or campaign reflects its fundamental purpose: catalysing a cultural transformation that strives for adaptability and resilience, through proactive skills development and continuous learning. This goes beyond training for specific purposes, to a broader definition of self-improvement, driven by a desire to learn more broadly and deeply, to excel at a particular craft, and to be useful to society in a particular way.
The success of the SkillsFuture movement ultimately depends on achieving a delicate balance between strategic government enablement and authentic societal ownership. As Singapore transitions from the foundational phase of building infrastructure and awareness to a more mature phase of embedding lifelong learning into the national fabric, the three enabling factors must work in concert to create an ecosystem where continuous skills development becomes instinctive rather than imposed. The movement's evolution from government initiative to national culture will be measured by the extent to which individuals, employers, and communities naturally embrace adaptability and learning as core values. This transformation demands sustained commitment to nurturing ecosystem capabilities while maintaining strategic coordination, so that the SkillsFuture movement becomes a genuinely shared endeavour that strengthens Singapore's collective resilience in an ever-changing global economy.
The Public Service must lead by example, fostering a culture of continuous learning within our agencies and equipping public officers with the skills needed to navigate emerging challenges. This is what PSD's Career Fitness seeks to achieve. As public officers, we can embody the values of SkillsFuture by staying curious, embracing change, and actively seeking opportunities to grow.
— Ng Chee Khern, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Manpower
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Tan Kok Yam is the Chief Executive of SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG), the agency that drives and implements the national SkillsFuture movement. Under his leadership, SSG strives to promote a culture of lifelong learning, build a support system to enable the pursuit of skills mastery, and raise the quality of adult education and training in Singapore.
Dilys Boey is the Chief Executive of Workforce Singapore (WSG). She is leading WSG on its mission to enable Singaporeans to access good job opportunities and build their careers at every stage of life, while supporting employers to create good jobs for Singaporeans and develop an agile workforce.