The skills, qualifications and credentials generated by educational systems are strongly related to labour market attainment. The centrality of the educational system for the structuring of individuals’ life chances has generated a long-lived and intense debate around the proper design of educational systems. The purpose of this article is to examine whether vocational training provided within the educational system protects graduates against employment precariousness over the life course. The extent and character of vocational training are related here to the transition from school to work, the risk of unemployment once established on the labour market, and the likelihood of finding new employment if unemployed. The data used consist of life history data from Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden. The results suggest that the impact of vocational training on labour market precariousness changes over people’s work career. Vocational training reduces precariousness during the transition from school to work, whereas there is no difference in the impact of general and vocational education on unemployment risk once established on the labour market. Instead, among those who do become unemployed there are indications that general education may be more beneficial.