The Sector Skills Assessment is an unprecedented, in-depth study of the retail sector – assesssing current training provision and predicting the industry’s future skills needs. Its findings help retailers and policymakers to ensure that training provision meets the sector’s needs.

Click here to download the latest Sector Skills Assessment research updated in December 2010, or click on the archive for a list of older documents.


Before the above research, Skillsmart Retail carried out the Sector Skills Agreement, which assessed the skills profile of the retail sector and predicted its future challenges at the time. The second stage gave a detailed outline of the sector’s current training provisions and offered a series of recommendations for retailers to meet future demand.

Sector Skills Agreement Stage 1: Assessment of Current and Future Skills Needs
Sector Skills Agreement Stage 2: Assessment of Current Provision