Future Skills Fund

The $200 million Future Skills Fund focuses on giving Queenslanders the skills needed for the jobs of the future, providing modern infrastructure for TAFE Queensland (TAFEQ) to support high-quality training, as well as ensuring Queensland's disadvantaged cohorts do not miss the opportunity to participate.

Why Future Skills?

The way we work is changing rapidly and our economy is changing as a result. Emerging industries are growing rapidly and traditional industries are looking to reinvent themselves to remain viable.

Recent work by Deloitte Access Economics predicts that the Queensland labour force of 2040 will look vastly different to today. We will move away from manual and routine tasks towards more cognitive and non-routine roles. These roles will be aligned to automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning as part of an industry shift to deploying new and existing technology.

Equipping people with the right skills is a key part of creating opportunities that translate into jobs, products and profitability.

Initiatives

Initiatives under the Future Skills Fund include:

• investing in infrastructure to meet significant growth in training demand and ensuring that our training facilities are equipped to provide these emerging skills
• establishing Manufacturing Skills Queensland to support both existing workers and new entrants into the manufacturing industry – an industry that is being transformed by Industry 4.0
• the TAFE Priority Skills Fund to provide funding to TAFEQ and Central Queensland University to grow training places in priority growth industries, as well as those that are new and emerging
• funding pathways to support people to become the tradespeople of the future under the Pre-Apprenticeship Support Program
• the Social Enterprise Jobs Fund to support social enterprises to scale up activities with a focus on creating training and employment opportunities
  • read about the Social Enterprise Grants
• the First Nations Training Strategy to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities develop skills relevant to local needs and to be able to compete for jobs in the future economy
• a Workforce Transition Support Program to support workers impacted by major business closures
• funding to skill Queenslanders under the Digital Professional Workforce Plan noting that technology and digital skills will be fundamental to participate in the future workforce
• the Diverse Queensland Workforce program, aimed at assisting work ready migrants, refugees and international students into employment
• the VET Emerging Industries initiative, developing flexible industry-led strategies for agribusiness, energy, manufacturing, and screen and digital sectors.

Last updated 4 December 2023