Meaning & use
reskill
Last updated
Meanings
verbtransitive
To teach someone new skills, especially so they can do a different job or use new technology.
Grammar: Takes an object: reskill the staff. Often used in the passive: employees were reskilled.
Patterns
- reskill someone
- reskill workers
- be reskilled for something
The company plans to reskill its factory workers for automated production.
Governments are investing in programs to reskill people who lost their jobs.
She was reskilled as a data analyst after the merger.
verbintransitive
To learn new skills yourself, especially for a new job or career change.
Grammar: No object; often used with 'to' or 'for': reskill to become a nurse, reskill for a new career.
Patterns
- reskill for something
- reskill to do something
- need to reskill
Many adults decide to reskill when their industry declines.
He reskilled to become a solar panel installer.
If you want to stay employable, you may need to reskill every few years.
Word forms
| third person singular | reskills |
|---|---|
| past tense | reskilled |
| past participle | reskilled |
| -ing form | reskilling |
Common combinations
- reskill workers
- The factory will reskill workers whose jobs are replaced by robots.
- reskill for a new career
- She took evening classes to reskill for a new career in healthcare.
- need to reskill
- Older employees often need to reskill to keep up with software changes.
- reskill and upskill
- The training program aims to reskill and upskill the entire department.
Synonyms and how they differ
- retrain
- Retrain is very close, but it often suggests learning a new way to do the same kind of job, while reskill usually means learning completely different skills.
- upskill
- Upskill means improving existing skills or learning advanced ones in the same field; reskill means learning new skills for a different role.
Word family
- reskilling noun
- The process of teaching or learning new skills.
- skill noun
- The ability to do something well.
Commonly confused: reskill or upskill?
reskill vs upskill
Upskill means adding to skills you already have in your current field, while reskill means learning a new set of skills, often for a different job.
Practice
After the plant closed, many workers had to ___ for jobs in the growing tech sector.
Choose one answer.
After 'had to', we need the base form of the verb: 'reskill'. 'Reskilling' is the -ing form, which cannot follow 'to'. 'Reskilled' is past tense or past participle, and 'reskills' is third-person singular, neither of which fits after 'to'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “reskill”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.