Data extracted in June 2025.
Planned article update: June 2026.
Highlights
In 2023, 2.1% of pupils in lower secondary education across the EU followed vocational programmes, with this share reaching 49.1% for upper secondary education, 95.2% for post-secondary non-tertiary education and 98.4% for short-cycle tertiary education.
In 2023, 43.9% of all graduates from vocational programmes in upper secondary education in the EU were female, while the share was higher (61.3%) among graduates from vocational programmes in post-secondary non-tertiary education.
Proportion of females among all graduates from vocational education programmes, 2023
This article presents statistics on vocational education in the European Union (EU) and forms part of an online publication on Education and training in the EU – facts and figures. It analyses vocational education of pupils/students in schools or other educational institutions. This education may be undertaken as part of secondary, post-secondary non-tertiary or short-cycle tertiary education.
Vocational training within secondary, post-secondary non-tertiary and short-cycle tertiary education
This article looks at vocational education within secondary, post-secondary non-tertiary and short-cycle tertiary education, typically within educational institutions: generally, this concerns initial education before a person enters the labour market, although it may also include adult education. These education levels are covered by the international standard classification of education (ISCED) levels 2 to 5. Vocational educational programmes are distinguished from general educational programmes, as the former are specifically designed for pupils to acquire the knowledge, skills and competencies for a particular occupation or trade.
Enrolled pupils
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_enrs01), (educ_uoe_enrs04), (educ_uoe_enrs07) and (educ_uoe_enrt01)
Within lower secondary education (ISCED level 2), vocational programmes were relatively rare across the EU: in 2023, 2.1% of all pupils at this level were enrolled in such programmes. The majority (54.7%) of enrolments were for boys.
Vocational programmes were more common within upper secondary education (ISCED level 3), accounting for 49.1% of all pupils at this level in 2023. As for lower secondary education, a majority (58.0%) of enrolments in vocational programmes within upper secondary education were for boys. More than half (55.7%) of all boys enrolled in upper secondary education were following vocational programmes, compared with just over two fifths (42.1%) of girls in upper secondary education.
Vocational programmes were much more common in post-secondary non-tertiary education (ISCED level 4), accounting for 95.2% of all pupils at this level in 2023. In 17 of the 23 EU countries with post-secondary non-tertiary education, all of the pupils at this level were enrolled in vocational programmes. A majority (58.2%) of enrolments were female.
Vocational programmes were most common in short-cycle tertiary education (ISCED level 5), accounting for 98.4% of all students at this level in 2023. In 19 of the 21 EU countries with short-cycle tertiary education, all of the pupils at this level were enrolled in vocational programmes; the exceptions were Sweden (92.8%) and Malta (35.5%).
_ET2025.png)
(%)
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_enrs04), (educ_uoe_enrs07) and (educ_uoe_enrt01)
Vocational programmes may be classified as only school or combined school and work. If the school component makes up 75% or more of the total study time, the programme is classified as school-based, whereas combined school and work programmes are where the work component makes up more than 25% – but not more than 90% – of the total study time.
Across the EU in 2023, the share of students of vocational education programmes that participated in combined school and work programmes was around a quarter (24.5%) in upper secondary education and 35.8% in post-secondary non-tertiary education. By contrast, in vocational programmes within short-cycle tertiary education the share was much lower, at 9.1%.
In a third of EU countries (9 out of 27), all of the upper secondary pupils enrolled in vocational programmes were in school only programmes. This share was also over three quarters in a further 9 EU countries. In 5 of the remaining 9 EU countries, fewer than half of upper secondary pupils enrolled in vocational programmes were in school only programmes: 10.7% in Germany and no pupils in school only programmes in Denmark, Ireland, Latvia and Hungary.
In 10 of the 23 EU countries with post-secondary non-tertiary education, all of the pupils at this level enrolled in vocational programmes were in school only programmes. This share was also over half in a further 7 EU countries. In Finland (41.8%), less than half of post-secondary non-tertiary pupils enrolled in vocational programmes were in school only programmes; in Sweden, this share was 3.7%; in Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg and Hungary, no such pupils were enrolled in school only programmes.
There were short-cycle tertiary educational programmes in 21 of the 27 EU countries. In 15 of these, all of the students at this level enrolled in vocational programmes were in school only programmes. This share was slightly lower (95.1%) in Spain and just over a third (35.1%) in Malta. By contrast, Sweden's share of short-cycle tertiary students enrolled in vocational programmes who were in school only programmes was only 2.4%, while in Italy, Latvia and Hungary no such pupils were enrolled in school only programmes.
In 17 EU countries, vocational programmes exist across all 3 levels of education shown in Table 2.
- In Czechia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Portugal, all pupils/students enrolled in vocational programmes were in school only programmes in each of the 3 levels.
- In Belgium, Spain, France, Austria, Poland and Slovakia, a majority of pupils/students enrolled in vocational programmes were in school only programmes in each of the 3 levels.
- In Italy, all pupils enrolled in vocational programmes in upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education were in school only programmes, while all students enrolled in short-cycle tertiary education vocational programmes were in combined school and work programmes.
- In Luxembourg, a majority or all pupils/students enrolled in vocational programmes in upper secondary or short-cycle tertiary education were in school only programmes, while all pupils enrolled in post-secondary non-tertiary vocational programmes were in combined school and work programmes.
- In Malta, a majority or all pupils enrolled in vocational programmes in upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary vocational programmes were in school only programmes, while a majority of pupils/students enrolled in short-cycle tertiary education were in combined school and work programmes.
- In Sweden, a majority of pupils enrolled in vocational programmes in upper secondary education were in school only programmes, while a majority of pupils/students enrolled in post-secondary non-tertiary or short-cycle tertiary education vocational programmes were in combined school and work programmes.
- In Germany, all students enrolled in vocational programmes in short-cycle tertiary education were in school only programmes, a majority of pupils enrolled in upper secondary education vocational programmes were in combined school and work programmes, while for post-secondary non-tertiary the split was almost even, with 50.1% in school only programmes.
- In Latvia and Hungary, all pupils/students enrolled in vocational programmes were in combined school and work programmes in each of the 3 levels.
Graduates from vocational programmes
_ET2025.png)
(%)
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_grad01)
In 2023, 43.9% of all graduates from upper secondary vocational programmes in the EU were female – see Figure 1. Among the EU countries, typically between a third and a half of all graduates were female. The lowest share was 23.4% in Cyprus, while shares just above half were recorded in the Netherlands (50.7%) and Malta (51.6%), with higher shares observed in Finland (54.1%) and Ireland (61.0%).
A similar analysis for post-secondary non-tertiary graduates shows a higher share of female graduates in 2023: 61.3% of post-secondary non-tertiary graduates in the EU (excluding France) were female. Furthermore, there was a wider range between the values for the EU countries. The share of female graduates from vocational programmes was lowest in Luxembourg, at 17.2%. By contrast, female graduates accounted for close to three quarters of all post-secondary non-tertiary graduates from vocational programmes in Latvia (72.5%), Estonia (72.9%) and Austria (73.5%), with shares nearer to four fifths in and Poland (77.5%) and Malta (79.4%).
Pupil-teacher ratios for vocational programmes
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_perp04)
The pupil-teacher ratio for vocational upper secondary education programmes in the EU averaged 10.8 pupils per teacher (excluding Ireland, Portugal and Sweden) in 2023 – see Figure 2. This ratio ranged across the EU countries from 5.9 pupils per teacher in Cyprus to 19.1 pupils per teacher in Finland and 19.7 pupils per teacher in Latvia.
Recent pupil-teacher ratios are also available for post-secondary non-tertiary vocational education for 18 EU countries (they are not shown in Figure 2). In 2023, the highest ratios were observed for Poland (54.1 pupils per teacher) and Romania (50.1 pupils per teacher), while the lowest ratio was observed in Bulgaria (1.8 pupils per teacher).
Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
Sources
The standards for international statistics on education are set by 3 international organisations
- the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) institute for statistics (UIS)
- the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU.
The source of data used in this article is a joint UNESCO/OECD/Eurostat (UOE) data collection on education statistics, and this is the basis for the core components of Eurostat’s database on education statistics. In combination with the joint data collection, Eurostat also collects data on regional enrolments and foreign language learning.
More information about the joint data collection is available in an article on the UOE methodology.
Classification
The international standard classification of education (ISCED) is the basis for international education statistics, describing 9 levels of education.
Within ISCED 2011, 2 categories of programme orientation are identified for ISCED levels 2 to 5: general and vocational educational programmes.
Key concepts
Vocational education programmes are designed for pupils/students to acquire the knowledge, skills and competencies specific to a particular occupation, trade, or class of occupations or trades. Vocational education may have work-based components (such as apprenticeships or traineeships). Successful completion of such programmes leads to vocational qualifications that are labour market relevant and acknowledged as occupationally oriented by the relevant national authorities and/or the labour market.
Vocational programmes may be classified as only school or combined school and work.
- Where the school component makes up 75% or more of the total study time, the programme is classified as school based. The teaching may be in a school environment or through distance education.
- Combined school and work programmes are those where the work component makes up more than 25% – but not more than 90% – of the total study time; in other words, school learning must account for at least 10% of the total study time.
A graduate is an individual who has successfully completed an education programme.
Pupil-teacher ratios are calculated by dividing the number of full-time equivalent pupils and students in each level of education by the number of full-time equivalent teachers at the same level. This ratio shouldn’t be confused with the average class size, which refers to the number of students in a given course or classroom.
Context
Copenhagen process and European initiatives
Since 2002, national authorities and social partners from European countries have taken part in the Copenhagen process, which aims to promote and develop vocational education and training (VET) initiatives.
For more information, see the article on Education and training statistics introduced.
Within the European Education Area (EEA), 1 of the targets for the EU is that the share of recent graduates from vocational education and training benefiting from exposure to work-based learning during their vocational education and training should be at least 60% by 2025. This covers the age group 20 to 34 and concerns people having left education and training 1 to 3 years previously.
Explore further
Other articles
Database
- Participation in education and training (educ_part)
- Pupils and students - enrolments (educ_uoe_enr)
- Education personnel (educ_uoe_per)
- Teachers and academic staff (educ_uoe_perp)
- Education and training outcomes (educ_outc)
- Graduates (educ_uoe_grad)
- Participation in education and training (educ_part)
Thematic section
Methodology
Metadata
- Pupils and students – enrolments (ESMS metadata file – educ_uoe_enr_esms)
Manuals and other methodological information
- Classification of learning activities – Manual – 2016 edition
- International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011
- ISCED 2011 Operational Manual – Guidelines for classifying national education programmes and related qualifications
- UOE data collection on formal education – Manual on concepts, definitions and classifications – 2024 edition
- UNESCO OECD Eurostat (UOE) joint data collection – methodology
External links
Legislation
- Regulation (EC) No 452/2008 of 23 April 2008 concerning the production and development of statistics on education and lifelong learning
- Commission Regulation (EU) No 912/2013 of 23 September 2013 as regards statistics on education and training systems
- Summaries of EU Legislation: statistics on education and lifelong learning