The EU faces an ageing population and fewer youngsters entering the labour market. In addition, the competence level required by the labour market is increasing due to technological innovation. Being aware that Europe has 76 million low-qualified people it is obvious that there is an enhanced need to further train and re-skill employees. This is in line with the recommendations of the New Skills for New Jobs agenda (EU2020 strategy). The above mentioned facts are also more than true for the Process Industry. Many employees work at lower skilled levels (EQF 1/2). However, the industry needs more and more employees that are able to function at EQF level 3/4. Since employees already obtained a lot of experience, the validation and recognition of their competences is indispensable to facilitate access to flexible education and training in order to achieve a higher level of qualification. Companies in the sector also struggle with shortages of skilled workers. To fill this gap, they attract employees from other EU countries. However, due to the differences in VET systems and diplomas it is difficult to understand the level of knowledge, skills and competences of foreign workers. The development of National Qualification Frameworks and their relation with the EQF will facilitate the understanding of levels of qualifications. Furthermore, the development of common professional profiles (as already started by the European Chemical Employers Group and the European Mine, Chemical & Energy Workers Federation) and the validation of prior learning give better insight in the competences of skilled workers. To give skilled workers the ability to acquire new skills to adapt to changing jobs and possible shifts in their career, is a major challenge for businesses and employees. It is important to know what sort of new skills are needed to be acquired. Also an insight in skills already being achieved by workers is needed, in order to fill in the gap between the two. To facilitate this process, this project aims to implement units of learning outcomes, based on ECVET, which can be used for the validation of competences of workers; and for the accumulation of competences to reach a higher qualification. The concrete objective of PILE UP is to implement units of learning outcomes in VET to upgrade skilled workers, by:1) transferring an innovative method for the development of learning units;2) innovation of existing profiles for All-Round Process Operators and Maintenance Technicians;3) generating learning units based on this common understanding;4) testing these learning units in VET sector and Process Industry;5) generating a common understanding of competence profiles;6) delivering and disseminate project results which can directly be implemented in practice by the sector.The consortium consists of education, industry and government bodies. All project outcomes have impact on workers, trainers/teachers/assessors, employers and students in the process industry.