This paper reflects on the relevance and applicability of "key transferable skills" to the higher education curriculum. Although they are regarded as having common currency within universities, it is argued that their uncritical acceptance devalues and distorts the nature and character of the teaching and learning employed in academe. The paper focuses primarily on the contemporary context in the United Kingdom, with broader implications elsewhere, in which the nomenclature of skills was progressively introduced and became pervasive across the sector. Similarly, the social/political policies driving such changes were essentially vocational and instrumental in nature. It is affirmed that while transferable skills have an important place and role to play in higher education a body of evidence shows that they do not readily transfer from the university to the workplace as is tacitly assumed. Furthermore, skills dominance in curriculum design and implementation leads to confusion and tensions concerning curricular ends and means.