There has been a prolific production of research papers on workplace learning (WPL) during the last two decades. Several reviews of the field discuss the development of themes, the use of foundational terms and some different models and frameworks have been developed. The purpose of this article is to analyse the recent development of the field of WPL, as presented in research literature, and to evaluate the potential of international survey data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) to contribute to this development. Our study is organised in three stages. Firstly, we summarise the main topics and trends emerging from recent literature on WPL. Secondly, we analyse how peer-reviewed publications using data from the OECD PIAAC survey have contributed to WPL. Thirdly, we compare and discuss the different contributions and make some suggestions as to how PIAAC survey data might be used to further develop our understanding of WPL.