Regional employment patterns in Scotland: statistics from the Annual Population Survey 2017

Section 4: Skills

4.1 Workforce Skills

Scotland has a highly qualified workforce. 48.4 per cent of workers aged 16-64 years in Scotland have further or higher education qualifications ( SVQ level 4+ or equivalent). This compared with 37.7 per cent in 2007 and is higher than the 2017 UK rate of 43.3 per cent.

Compared with 2007, the number of workers who have SVQ level 4+ qualifications has increased by 31.2 per cent from 935,700 to 1,227,400 in 2017. In the same period, the proportion of workers who have low or no qualifications has reduced.

Chart 26: Percentage of workers (16-64) by level of qualification held 2004-2017, Scotland

The employment rate for those aged 16-64 years, with further or higher education qualifications ( SVQ level 4+ or equivalent), at 82.3 per cent in 2017 was higher than for those with low or no qualifications (50.5 per cent) and also for those with Intermediate 2/Higher level or equivalent qualifications (71.8 per cent).

Although the employment rate for those with SVQ level 4 and above had decreased from 87.3 per cent in 2007 to 82.3 per cent in 2017. The gap in the employment rate for those with higher or further education, compared with those with low or no qualifications was 34.5 percentage points, similar to ten years before. Although, lower than the peak of 38.9 percentage points in 2013.

Figure 5: Employment rate (16-64) by qualification level

4.2 Graduates

Chart 27: Employment rate (16-64) by level of qualification held, Scotland

Chart 28: Percentage of workers (25-64 years) who are graduates, Scotland

35.6 per cent of workers in Scotland aged 25-64 years in 2017 were graduates, close to the highest on record.

This compares with less than a quarter in 2007. However, there is large regional variation across the country.

Almost 60 per cent of workers living in Edinburgh were graduates, compared with 1 in 5 workers who live in the Shetland Islands.

Figure 6: Percentage of workers (25-64 years) who are graduates by local authority 2017

Per cent of workers aged 25-64 years

4.3 On job training

The percentage of employees who reported receiving job-related training in the last 3 months has been decreasing steadily. In 2004 around one third of workers received job related training in the last 3 months. This had decreased to less than one quarter by 2017.

Chart 29: Percentage of employees (16-64) who received on the job training in the last 3 months 2004-2017, Scotland