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This article reports on research carried out under the Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC's) Learning Society Programme. The program comprised 14 projects involving research into the learning society and the ways in which it can contribute to the development of knowledge and skills for employment and in other areas of adult life. In the United Kingdom, the importance of skills and learning to the economic health of the country is clearly acknowledged by government with a corresponding increase in policy emphasis on skill development, particularly the key skills required by employers in response to workplace change. However, empirical data on skill trends within the workforce is scarce and limited to the measurement of education participation rates and qualification attainment. The authors aim to broaden the debate by comparing the findings of two national surveys of the skills in the British workforce, one conducted in 1986 (the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative) and the other in 1997 (the Skills Survey), and drawing attention to the differences and similarities between the two datasets and the methodologies employed to compare skills over time. The skill trends over the 1986-97 period are examined in relation to five aspects of skills: qualifications held by the respondent; qualifications required to get their current job; the relevance of credentials held to that job; how long respondents spent training to do their current type of work; and the time taken to do the job well. It is concluded that the trajectory of skill trends over the last decade has maintained an upward direction regardless of the skill dimension. The skill levels of women have increased at a faster rate, contributing to the closing of the skill gap between men and women.