The most popular Skills activities – and the unique ones

Not sure what to do for your Skills section, or just curious about what other DofE participants get up to? We crunched the numbers from over 211,000 of our 2025/26 participants to find out what the most popular – and most obscure – Skills activities are.

1. Cooking

If you’re learning to cook or bake for your DofE, you’re not alone. This is the most popular skill by far!

63,778 participants do cooking or cookery, setting them up for success in the kitchen in the future. And what about dessert? The 512 participants who do cake decoration has that covered.

There are even participants who can pair drinks with dinner, 10 are doing beer making, while 6 do wine making.

2. Music

The second most popular skill area is music, encompassing 25% of participation. The most popular skill is playing an instrument, which 43,325 participants do. Many participants have chosen their voice as their instrument, with 5,883 singing as their skill.

Some of our participants prefer making music together, with 2,561 playing in a band. The 399 participants doing composing prefer writing music, and there’s also 198 budding DJs.

And when our DofE musical talents are ready to put on a show, there’s 30 participants who arrange music events as their skill who can help. There’s even 28 participants doing sound recording who’ll soon know how to record a single.

You don’t need to play an instrument or sing to do music for your Skill, we’ve got 215 participants who do music appreciation, 184 evaluate music and musical performances, 174 read and notate music, and 125 listen to, analyse and describe music.

3. Creative arts

Lots of our participants love getting on stage, 7,992 of them do acting, drama and theatre skills. We also have participants who love watching, 865 of them do dance appreciation, 314 do ballet appreciation, and 127 do theatre appreciation.

There’s other skills for those who prefer staying out of the limelight too, 731 participants do film and video making. Other participants staying behind the camera lens include the 3,726 who do photography, and the 281 who do wildlife photography.

Participants we might see in museums and exhibitions in the future include the 5,953 who do drawing, the 1,813 who do painting and design and the 1,163 who do fine art.

4. Crafting

One thing is clear, our participants love to make things! By far the most popular skill is crocheting, taken on by 2,831 participants. In comparison, 574 participants do knitting.

DofE participants have many textile talents, 886 do textiles, 626 dressmaking, 38 quilting, 14 patchwork and 3 rug making. To decorate these creations, the 359 participants who do embroidery or 225 who cross stitch can help.

Crafting isn’t limited to textiles, 507 participants do model construction, 471 do woodwork, 140 do ceramics and 10 do basket making. We’ve got some sustainable crafters too, 455 participants do DIY, 21 furniture restoration, and 1 participant does transport restoration.

5. Skills for employment

A consistently popular DofE skill is learning to drive, 3,264 participants make it the 11th most popular skill overall.

Having a driving licence is useful when applying to many jobs, as is experience in debating and public speaking – which 1,211 of participants are working on.

With skills for employment, 821 participants are casting a wide net, while the 117 participants learning about the police service and 95 doing criminology seemingly have a career path in mind.

Some participants know certain skills are always useful, like the 1,158 doing information technology, the 929 doing money management and the 383 doing young enterprise.

6. Old and new

Our participants are both preserving the past and preparing for the future. We have 5 participants doing historical period re-enacting and 7 who build catapults and trebuchets, while 11 do astronautics and 49 build rockets.

In some cases, the modern skills – like website design with 251 participants – outnumbers the historical skills, like archaeology and palaeontology with 9 and 18 participants.

However, cyber security and church bellringing are neck and neck with 197 and 196 participants respectively.

7. Unique

Have a niche interest or looking for a skill not many other DofE participants do? We’ve got you covered. Our ventriloquism community has 2 participants, half the numbers of our snail farming participants at 4.

While handling and caring for horses totals 1,386 participants, there are only 15 doing pigeon breeding and farming.

We’ve got several niche crafting activities, there are 3 participants doing French polishing, 3 doing lace making, 6 doing taxidermy and 8 doing egg decorating.

Four skills currently have 1 participant working on them: enamelling, brass rubbing, transport restoration and stamps.

Take a look at our Skills page if you want more inspiration or to learn more about the section.