English Lesson: Jobs and Skills

In this lesson, we will focus on skills. 

A skill is the ability to do something well, especially because you have learned how to do it and practised it. 

Jobs, and the people who do them, can be described as: 

• highly skilled (e.g. car designer) | A highly skilled job requires special abilities or training. 
• skilled (e.g. car production manager) | A skilled job needs a person who has both ability and experience or training. 
• semi-skilled (e.g. taxi driver) | A semi-skilled job needs some basic skills. Someone who does this kind of job is called a semi-skilled worker. 
• unskilled (e.g. car cleaner) | An unskilled job doesn't need much education, training, or experience. 

Examples: 

• highly skilled jobs: surgeon, pilot  
• skilled jobs: office manager, teacher 
• semi-skilled jobs: car worker on a production line, bus driver 
• unskilled jobs: office cleaner, manual workers 

You can say that someone is: 

skilled at + noun OR skilled in + noun 

• skilled at/in customer service 
• skilled at/in computer software 
• skilled at/in 3D animation 

skilled at + VERB + -ing OR skilled in + VERB + -ing 

• skilled at/in communicating 
• skilled at/in working with large groups 
• skilled at/in using Photoshop 

​
Examples: 

• She is skilled at dealing with difficult customers. 
• She is skilled in designing websites. 
• All our staff are skilled in at least two languages. 
• Our company is looking for people skilled in electronics. 
• A friend of mine is highly skilled at computer programming. 

You can also say that someone is: 

good with somebody / something 

• good with computers 
• good with numbers 
• good with people 
• good with money 

Examples: 

• I am a finance journalist so people always think that I'm good with money. 
• He's very good with children. 
• She has always been good with animals. 
• She's good with her hands. (= She's able to make things using her hands.) ​

TASK:
Make your own sentences with the word combinations you learned in this lesson. 


Other lessons:
Collocations with Job (Part 1) 
Collocations with Job (Part 2) 
Business English: Working in an office 
Business English: How to Talk about Your Job Responsibilities 
English Lesson: Collocations for Success 
English Lesson: Collocations for Feelings 
​Commonly Used Phrases in Spoken English 


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