Skills and Productivity Board: Skills Taxonomy

Contract summary

Industry

• Research and development services and related consultancy services - 73000000

Location of contract

United Kingdom

Value of contract

£0 to £25,000

Procurement reference

DFERPPU/20-21/049

Published date

7 May 2021

Closing date

5 March 2021

Closing time

11:59pm

Contract start date

31 March 2021

Contract end date

30 June 2021

Contract type

Supply contract

Procedure type

Open procedure (below threshold)

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

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Description

As announced in September 2020, the new Skills and Productivity Board (SPB) will undertake expert analysis of national skills needs to inform government policy. The board is independent, composed of labour market and skills economists and chaired by business leader Stephen van Rooyen (CEO and EVP of Sky). The government established the board to provide it with evidence and analysis on gaps in our knowledge of the labour market, including identifying which skills add the most value to the economy and locating the most significant skills mismatches, both now and in the future.

Given its scope and role outlined above, the SPB requires clear definitions of skills and skills mismatches. Specifically, the SPB requires:

• A functional and operational skills 'taxonomy' - to be able to name, define and classify skills (e.g., knowledge skills, workplace skills, transferable skills).

• A way of linking these skills/skill sets to occupations and, possibly, qualifications.
We are seeking expressions of interest to undertake a scoping report on how the SPB could:

• Develop a functional skills taxonomy, possibly building on the work of others, for use

• Use this skill taxonomy to identify areas of significant skills shortage.


This report should provide:

• An overview of other work in this area (such as that based on O*NET and ESCO), outlining the pros/cons of these taxonomies and which is best to map to jobs in the UK.

• Bringing together the work currently taking place on skills taxonomies in the UK to consider how the SPB could use this within their own work to identify skills shortages. Possible extensions - including techniques such as information from web scraping vacancies and other RTI - should also be explored.

• Extending this work further to understand whether it is possible to link skills to both qualifications and occupations using these taxonomies.
Therefore, the main research question are:

• What skills taxonomies exist in the UK, and what are the pros/cons of using them to identify skill mismatches/shortages?

• How might the SPB use these taxonomies within their work given their scope/interest?

• How could these taxonomies be developed to include mapping of skills to qualifications as well as occupations?
Further information can be found in the attachment.

Assessment criteria

• Evidence of suppliers' understanding of the policy area

• Evidence of suppliers' technical/professional ability to undertake the work

• Evidence of relevant research experience.

EOI responses should be limited to 3 A4 pages maximum.

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More information

Previous notice about this procurement

Skills and Productivity Board: Skills Taxonomy

• Opportunity
• Published 26 February 2021, last edited 1 March 2021

Attachments

• NEW EOI form - Skills and Productivity Board Skills Taxonomy.docx
• Tender notice
• Expression of Interest

• Skills and Productivity Board Skills Taxonomy Project Overview.pdf
• Tender notice
• Project Overview

Additional text

EOI responses should be limited to 3 A4 pages.

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Award information

Awarded date

22 April 2021

Contract start date

22 April 2021

Contract end date

23 July 2021

Total value of contract

£25,000

This contract was awarded to 1 supplier.

FRONTIER ECONOMICS LIMITED

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About the buyer

Contact name

Sarah Billingham

Address

Department For Education
Sheffield
S1 2FJ
England

Telephone

07786748338

Email

Sarah.Billingham@education.gov.uk