Our Mission

Through close collaboration with industry and other stakeholders, we work collectively to grow Australia’s pool of finance, technology and business talent to benefit all industries.

The Future Skills Organisation (FSO) is a Jobs and Skills Council established by the Australian Government to address the current labour and skills shortages while future-proofing the country’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector.

The FSO ensures there are opportunities for everyone to access finance, technology and business skills, so desperately needed across the economy.

We focus on advancing current and future skills for successful businesses of any size and industry. These skills include accounting, digital literacy, HR, marketing and technology.

We achieve this through three key priorities

    • Active and empowered industry leaders drive the direction, aligned with industry needs and priorities

    • Government, training providers and unions are also part of the design and delivery process

    • Data and analytics provide unique insights to identify and forecast current, emerging and future workforce challenges and opportunities

    • We use a skilling narrative, vocabulary and value that resonates with stakeholders across industries

    • We collaborate with training providers about the current, emerging and future skills employers need

    • Innovative approaches are being co-designed with training providers to make training packages more effective, scalable and faster to deliver

    • At every stage we assess training, evaluate success and provide multiple opportunities for feedback and engagement

    • Workforce Plan insights and learnings are used to co-design innovative solutions with potential for impact

    • Programs that show promise and impact are constantly evaluated for potential to be continued or scaled

    • We ensure close collaboration with industry, as well as government, training providers and unions

    • Collaboration across Jobs and Skills Councils plays a fundamental role in a whole of economy approach

Our Program of Work

  • Workforce planning is a core responsibility, setting the context for everything else we do.

    It provides the evidence base to understand current and future workforce challenges and opportunities and is used to drive the programme of activities designed to strengthen the finance, technology and business (FTB) sectors of the economy.

    The FSO’s Initial Workforce Plan highlights an opportunity for our vocational education and training system to play a greater role in developing innovative solutions to meet future skill demands.

    See the five key themes for the FTB workforces set out in the Initial Workforce Plan.

  • Our approach to training product development is rooted in our Workforce Plan. We strive to create training products that are responsive and adaptable to the evolving needs of the modern workforce.

    With a focus on ensuring high educational standards, we are developing products that can be readily delivered by training providers.

    To validate effectiveness, we pilot emerging products and test innovative approaches, driven by the requirements of industry.

  • The vocational education and training (VET) system has been a source of around half of training for entrants into finance, technology and business occupations.

    The FSO plays a key role in strengthening the skilling and training system to keep pace with changing skills demands.

    By partnering with training providers, we align workforce planning objectives and national training products with careers advice and training delivery.

    We also promote the benefits of the VET system to employers.

  • Businesses need people with the right skills to thrive. They understand the reality of what needs to be done and the skills they need now and in the future. We act as the voice of industry to drive skills needs back into the training and skilling system.

    At the core of our approach lies active listening and comprehensive consultation, followed by prompt action.

    Collaborate with us and make an impact on the future of skills.

A image of stylized artwork depicting 3 people speaking while looking at a laptop.

To advance transferable and industry-specific skills and meet the demands of the employers, it is necessary to make changes to the current system.

These changes require close collaboration among all stakeholders involved.

Working with Jobs and Skills Australia

Jobs and Skills Australia works closely with JSCs to:

  • Support the effective operation of JSCs by providing baseline, whole-of-economy data and insights on current, emerging and future skills needs, including outputs from its workforce forecasting activities, as well as data on VET system activity and performance.

  • Integrate the sector-specific insights generated by JSCs into its analysis and advice, and rely on feedback from JSCs as key users to continuously improve its data products.

  • Work closely with relevant JSCs when tasked with conducting deep-dive capacity studies into priority sectors (such as the Clean Energy Workforce study currently underway).