Global Skills Taxonomy Adoption Toolkit 2025

In Singapore, large banks often maintain their own skills taxonomies, even if they have mandates from headquarters and the resources to subscribe to custom plat-forms. While they tailor these taxonomies to meet specific company needs, they remain aligned with the national skills framework. Organizations can use their own unique job titles or skill sets, but they can still cross-ref-erence against the national skills database to ensure consistency. This flexibility enables each company to retain its own taxonomy while speaking a common national language. However, reaching agreement across sectors is challenging, as each entity tends to see its needs as unique. SkillsFuture Singapore The Global Skills Taxonomy, developed by the World Economic Forum’s network of partners, provides a harmonized language for skills that addresses the evolving skills needs of the global workforce. It is designed to be a cross-functional tool that bridges industries around the world. It classifies 93 distinct skills into two broad categories: Skills, Knowledge and Abilities, and Attitudes. O*NET is an occupation-based database developed by the United States Department of Labor. O*NET categorizses 35 distinct skills into two broad categories – Basic Skills and Cross-Functional Skills – and identifies 52 distinct abilities which are required in different occupations across industries. ESCO is a skills and occupations database developed by the European Commission. ESCO categorizes 13,485 distinct skills, specific to different sectors and occupations, into three groups: Skills, Compe-tences and Knowledge. ESCO provides a highly granular breakdown, covering both generic compe-tences and very specific technical skills required in specific job roles. The Singapore Skills Framework (SFw) is a detailed and sector-specific skills taxonomy developed by SkillsFuture Singapore. It categorizes over 2,000 different skills across industries into two broad cate-gories: technical skills and competencies (TSCs) and generic skills and competencies (GSCs).Key insight 10: Examples of the granularity of international skill taxonomies World Economic Forum Global Skills Taxonomy (GST) Occupational Information Network (O*NET) European Skills, Competenc- es, Qualifications and Occu-pations (ESCO) Singapore Skills Framework (SFw) Global Skills Taxonomy Adoption Toolkit 32