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Adult education and training

Lifelong learning seeks to improve an individual’s knowledge, skills, competences and/or qualifications for personal, social and/or professional reasons. For many occupations, it is increasingly important for the labour force to develop existing skills and learn new ones that are relevant to a specific job or which provide opportunities for new career paths. Some jobs/occupations will likely cease to exist in the future as a result of technological change.

The strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021–30) has a specific EU policy target in this area; by 2025, at least 47% of people aged 25–64 should have participated in adult learning during the previous 12 months. This target was revised in June 2021 as a result of its inclusion as one of the EU 2030 social targets within the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan; the revised goal is to have, by 2030, at least 60% of people aged 25–64 participating in education and training every year.

More about the data: adult participation in education and training

Up until 2021, the data collected by the labour force survey included information on the share of the population that received formal or non-formal education and training during the 4 weeks prior to the survey; this indicator is presented below .

As of reference year 2022, labour force survey statistics have been collected for people participating in education and training during the 12 months prior to the survey. However, at the time of writing (May 2024), this new dataset isn’t yet available with a regional breakdown. As such, the regional statistics presented below concern people aged 25–64 participating in education and training during the 4 weeks prior to the (labour force) survey.

During the last 2 decades, the proportion of adults (aged 25–64) in the EU participating in education and training has more than doubled. At the start of the time series in 2002, around 1 in 20 people participated in education and training during the 4 weeks prior to the (labour force) survey, with the participation rate standing at 5.3%. The rate increased gradually and by 2019 had reached 10.8%. However, following the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, it fell back to 9.1% in 2020, before subsequently rebounding to 10.8% in 2021. Thereafter, the EU’s adult participation rate for education and training continued to increase, growing at a relatively rapid pace, reaching 11.9% in 2022 and 12.7% in 2023.

The regional distribution of participation rates in education and training among people aged 25–64 was somewhat skewed insofar as almost 60% of NUTS level 2 regions – or 139 out of 241 regions – reported a rate in 2023 that was below the EU average (see Map 6). The lowest participation rates were concentrated in southern and eastern EU countries. By contrast, the highest participation rates were primarily located in a band of regions running from the Nordic EU countries, down through the Netherlands. Most of the other countries with regions also having participation rates already above the EU average were in a band continuing down through Belgium and Luxembourg into France and on to the Iberian Peninsula, while another group included several regions around Austria, parts of northern and central Italy, and Slovenia. Elsewhere, relatively high rates were recorded in many capital regions.

In 2023, the 8 highest levels of adult participation in education and training were all recorded in Sweden

Map 6 shows participation rates in education and training for people aged 25–64 for 2023. The regional distribution of adult participation rates was relatively homogeneous within individual EU countries, at least in part reflecting national rather than regional education and training initiatives. There were 20 NUTS level 2 regions that had participation rates that were equal to or above 25.0% (as shown by the darkest shade of blue); this group included every region of Denmark and Sweden, as well as 4 Dutch regions and 3 Finnish ones. The 8 highest regional participation rates in education and training were recorded in Sweden. The Swedish capital region of Stockholm had the highest participation rate, at 41.3%, followed by Västsverige, Sydsverige and Östra Mellansverige (all within the range of 38.0–38.9%). The Danish capital region of Hovedstaden had the highest participation rate outside of Sweden (35.2%). It was followed by the Finnish capital region of Helsinki-Uusimaa (29.2%), while Utrecht in the Netherlands (26.5%) had the highest participation rate outside of the Nordic countries.

There were 25 NUTS level 2 regions where the participation rate for adult education and training was below 5.0% in 2023 (they are indicated by the yellow shade in Map 6). This group was principally concentrated in south-eastern Europe: Bulgaria (all 6 regions) and Greece (11 out of 13 regions), but also included 4 regions from Poland, as well as 2 regions from each of Croatia and Romania. At the bottom end of the range, the lowest rates were recorded in the Bulgarian regions of Severoiztochen (1.1%), Severozapaden (1.0%) and Severen tsentralen (0.9%).