How EU-supported Vocational Training Can Help Adults Build a New Career Path
Livet skal forstaas baglaens, men leves forlaens.
“Life can only be understood backwards,” wrote the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, “but it must be lived forwards.”
Sooner or later, most of us will reach a turning point in our working lives. Looking back, we can often see how we arrived where we are: the choices we made, the responsibilities we carried, the opportunities we missed or had to postpone. Deciding what comes next, is rarely so clear. Yet Kierkegaard urges us to move forward even before the full shape of the path is visible.
That is precisely what Robert Holmquist, fellow Dane and graduate of Philosophy and History, decided to do when he signed up for a technical qualification in energy-efficient glazing, backed by the European Social Fund.
Robert’s story shows how vocational training can do more than improve employability. It became a way for him to build confidence, stability and purpose through work.
He is one of over 10 million people since 2014 to have gained a qualification with help from the European Social Fund. Projects range from Portugal’s Pessoas 2030 programme, expected to support over 350,000 vocational training students, to Hamburg’s ‘Dream Job in the Skilled Trades’, which has helped adults and young people move into apprenticeships in trades such as hairdressing, roofing, baking and plumbing.
From shopwork to precision engineering
After years of working in the clothing sector in southern Spain, the time felt right for Sonia Parrado-Garcia to seize an opportunity and move into engineering in the aerospace industry. She found a training course that allows her to balance work, training and caring for her two children.
Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.
The Andalusian poet Antonio Machado wrote, “Traveller, there is no path; the path is made by walking.” Sonia’s experience gives that idea a practical form.
Working in aerospace technology was not on Sonia’s radar when she was at school, nor even during the early part of her career. But career change often begins like this: not with a perfect plan, but with an opening that appears at the right moment and the motivation to make it work.
Stories like Robert’s and Sonia’s remind us that a change of direction does not mean starting again from nothing. Adults bring experience with them: from study, from work, from caring responsibilities, from years spent adapting to real-life demands. Erasmus+ and EU-backed vocational training schemes can help turn that experience into a bridge towards something new.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/09/24/meet-the-danish-students-training-in-skilled-trades-to-power-europes-green-transition
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/07/14/spains-vocational-aerospace-schools-prepare-young-workers-for-global-careers-and-skills-mo
• What’s a bigger risk in your opinion: trying something new or sticking to what you know?
• Have you ever made a career choice that felt like a ‘jump into the unknown’?