The automotive sector is changing faster than its workforce can keep up. Across Europe, the vehicles arriving in workshops today are fundamentally different from those that technicians were trained to service. Electric drivetrains, high-voltage battery systems, advanced driver assistance systems, connected vehicle architectures, and AI-enabled diagnostics are no longer emerging technologies on the horizon. They are the daily reality of automotive maintenance and repair. And the skills required to work with them safely and effectively are in short supply.
This is the context in which AutoCredify was established, and it is the context that makes the project’s work urgent.
The Twin Transitions Are Reshaping Skills Demand
Two major forces are driving skills transformation in the automotive sector simultaneously. The green transition is the more visible of the two. The European Union’s commitment to phasing out new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035, combined with rapid growth in the electric vehicle market, is fundamentally changing the technical content of automotive maintenance and repair. Working on high-voltage battery systems requires not only different tools and procedures, but also a different safety mindset. A technician who has not been trained and certified to handle high-voltage systems cannot safely work on an electric vehicle. This is not a matter of professional preference but of regulatory and safety obligation.
The digital transition is equally profound, though less immediately visible. Modern vehicles are, in effect, rolling software platforms. Diagnosing faults in an electric or hybrid vehicle requires the ability to interpret complex data streams, interface with manufacturer-specific diagnostic platforms, and understand the interaction between electronic control units, sensors, and actuators. ADAS systems, including automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance, adaptive cruise control, and parking automation, require precise calibration after any repair work that affects the vehicle’s geometry or sensor alignment. Connected vehicle systems generate data flows that must be managed and interpreted. These are not tasks that can be performed with traditional mechanical intuition alone.
Labour Shortages Are Making the Problem Acute
The skills challenge would be significant even in a sector with a stable workforce. But the automotive maintenance and repair sector across Europe is simultaneously facing significant labour shortages, which have been documented in reporting from ACEA and EURES. The sector is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises, many of which lack the time, budget, and infrastructure to provide extended training for their staff. A technician cannot spend months away from a busy workshop attending a full requalification programme. Training needs to be modular, targeted, and deliverable without disrupting the daily operations of a small repair business.
This is precisely the gap that well-designed micro-credentials can fill. Rather than requiring technicians to return to education for lengthy periods, a coherent micro-credential pathway allows a worker to acquire and formally demonstrate a specific new competence, such as safe high-voltage vehicle handling, ADAS sensor calibration, or EV fault diagnosis, as a discrete, assessed, and recognised unit of learning. That unit can be completed in a matter of days or weeks, stacked with others over time, and presented to an employer or regulatory authority as verifiable evidence of specific technical capability.
The Existing Training Landscape Is Not Keeping Pace
The AutoCredify Good Practice Mapping Report confirms that the training market is responding to these shifts, but not yet in a coherent or consistent way. Across Spain, Finland, and Portugal, the three pilot countries of the AutoCredify project, the mapping identified a large volume of short courses and training modules addressing electric vehicle maintenance, high-voltage safety, diagnostics, and ADAS calibration. Some of this provision is strong and well-organised. OEM training ecosystems, standards-based safety certifications, and university-led electromobility programmes all demonstrate that high-quality, technically credible training for automotive professionals exists and is being delivered.
However, the mapping also found that most of this provision does not yet meet the EU definition of a micro-credential, as established in the 2022 Council Recommendation. The majority of short courses lack formal and transparent assessment, documented quality assurance, digital verifiability, or the kind of stackability that would allow individual units to contribute meaningfully to a broader qualification pathway. A technician who completes such a course may gain useful knowledge, but they leave without a credential that an employer in another region, or another country, can easily interpret or trust.
The result is a fragmented landscape in which training volume is high, but training quality and coherence are uneven. Formal VET provision and industry certification often operate in parallel rather than in an integrated way, with limited mutual recognition and weak connectivity between the two worlds.
Why Micro-Credentials Are the Right Response
The EU definition of micro-credentials, developed through the 2022 Council Recommendation, was designed precisely to address this kind of fragmentation. A genuine micro-credential is a short, focused, assessed learning unit with documented learning outcomes, a defined workload, a specified quality assurance basis, and a format that is digitally verifiable and potentially stackable into broader pathways. These requirements are not bureaucratic formalities. They are the features that make a credential trustworthy and portable in a labour market.
For the automotive sector, the case for micro-credentials structured in this way is particularly strong. The sector’s safety-critical nature means that competence must be demonstrable, not merely implied by course attendance. An employer hiring a technician to work on high-voltage battery systems needs to know, with confidence, that the person has been assessed against a recognised standard, not simply that they attended a course. A regulatory inspection that requires evidence of certified competence cannot be satisfied by a certificate of participation.
Equally, the pace of technological change means that qualifications and training content must be updatable more quickly than traditional full-qualification revision cycles allow. Micro-credentials, when embedded in sector-driven governance structures that connect to industry standards and OEM technology cycles, can be reviewed and updated as technologies evolve, without requiring a comprehensive overhaul of an entire qualification framework.
What AutoCredify Is Doing About It
AutoCredify is working to demonstrate that trustworthy, portable, and stackable micro-credentials in automotive maintenance and repair are practically achievable. Drawing on the evidence gathered through its Good Practice Mapping, the project is engaging stakeholders, including employers, training providers, VET authorities, sector bodies, and social partners, to develop a shared understanding of what a credible automotive micro-credential looks like, what governance structures are needed to sustain it, and how it can be delivered at scale in the real conditions of small and medium-sized training providers and automotive workshops.
The project builds on what already exists. The mapping has confirmed that Spain, Finland, and Portugal each have genuine strengths to work with: modular VET architectures, nationally recognised qualification systems, standards-based safety certifications, and committed training providers with relevant expertise. AutoCredify’s task is not to replace these systems but to strengthen and connect them, raising the bar on assessment, quality assurance, and digital verifiability, and demonstrating how micro-credentials can become durable, trusted components of the automotive skills ecosystem.