Employability skills are central to gaining and keeping employment (e.g. whether paid or unpaid, as an employee or self employed) as well as career progression. The lack of such skills is regularly referred to as one reason for the United Kingdom's often cited long tail of underachievement. Employability skills are at the forefront of government policy to increase the workforce from around 75% to 80% of the working age population. Demographic trends mean that, despite current economic gloom and the likelihood of an increase in unemployment, there are still too few young people entering the labour market to take all the jobs that will become available over the period of the current skills ambition, to 2020. This paper discusses the following: (1) definitions of employability; (2) recent developments; and (3) the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) activity on employability. (Contains 9 online resources.)