ESCO versions | ESCO

Hierarchy view

Introduction to ESCO
Structure and features of the ESCO classification
ESCO Development
- ESCO Governance
- ESCO versions
ESCO glossary
How can ESCO be used in practice?
- ESCO in Job Search and Job Matching
- ESCO connects the labour market with education & training
  - Linking learning outcomes of qualifications with ESCO skills
  - Searching for learning opportunities
- ESCO for Labour Market Analysis
  - ESCO for labour market intelligence
  - ESCO in statistics
- Implementing ESCO into Systems
  - Extending ESCO
  - Gap Analysis
Crosswalks and Related Frameworks/Classifications

ESCOpedia

Comma-separated values (CSV)

Competence-based job matching

Continuous improvement process

Development of ESCO

DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion

Digital Skills labelling in ESCO

ESCO data formats

ESCO for labour market intelligence

ESCO governance

ESCO in statistics

ESCO Maintenance Committee

ESCO mapping platform

ESCO Member States Working Group

ESCO occupations mapping pilot

ESCO skills mapping pilot

European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop)

European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp)

European e-Competence Framework (e-CF)

European Qualifications Framework (EQF)

Functional analysis

Green skills labelling in ESCO

How can ESCO be used in practice?

International Standard Classification of Education: Fields of Education and Training 2013 (ISCED-F)

International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO)

Linked Open Data

Linking learning outcomes of qualifications with ESCO skills

List of sectors of economic activities for the development of ESCO v1

Mapping to ESCO

Non-preferred term

Occupations pillar

OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS)

Piloting and testing

Qualifications and ESCO

Qualifications dataset register (QDR)

Qualifications Metadata Schema

Reference Groups

Regulated professions

Searching for learning opportunities

Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS)

Skill contextualisation

Skill reusability level

Skills-Occupations Matrix Tables

Terminological guidelines

Training sessions: EURES and ESCO

Transversal knowledge, skills and competences

Two pillar structure of ESCO

Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)

What is ESCO and how to use it?

ESCO versions

ESCO is continuously updated to reflect changes on the European labour market and in education and training. These changes are reflected in different ESCO versions.

Version numbers starting with 0 (zero) are used for early ESCO versions that are used for piloting and testing only. The first fully-fledged ESCO version was ESCO v1. As of this version, a versioning mechanism keeps track of changes in ESCO.

ESCO updates come in two types: Major and Minor.

Major updates involve significant changes such as the creation of new content, semantic revisions and adjustments to the data model. This means the introduction of new ESCO concepts (i.e. new skills, new occupations) together with quality improvements. For instance, ESCO v.1.2.0, released in May 2024, introduces substantial updates.
Minor updates, on the other hand, focus only on quality improvements without introducing new content. These changes typically include adjustments to concept relations, label modifications, typo corrections, and translations. For example, the minor version ESCO v1.1.1 and v1.1.2 mainly consists of quality enhancements.

List of ESCO versions

Demo versions for piloting and testing

ESCO v0: Released 23 October 2013
ESCO v0.1: Used for piloting as of early 2015
ESCO v0.2: Used for piloting as of late 2015
ESCO v0.8: Released in March 2017
ESCO v0.9: Released in May 2017

Full ESCO versions

ESCO v1 (first full-scale ESCO version): Released in mid 2017
ESCO v1.1 (Major): Released in January 2022
ESCO v1.1.1 (Minor): Released in September 2022
ESCO v1.1.2 (Minor): Released in February 2024
ESCO v1.2 (Major): Released in May 2024

Delta Files

To facilitate understanding of changes between versions, ESCO provides Delta files. These files offer detailed insights for ESCO implementers by documenting every change between versions. For example, downloading the delta file for version v.1.1.2 provides insights into the differences between v1.1.2 and the earlier version v1.1.1. Delta files are downloadable exclusively in CSV format in the Download Section.