I don't know if there is a threshold involved or if I don't play my colonies long enough (given recent food problems this is likely), but I see my colonists improve in skills in the system window and can verify a not terrible skill rating, but see no changes in the work crew list value.
It does seem like a UI error. The skill ups do work though. My late game chefs and farmers work reeeeaaally fast.
Well, I managed to run a colony for a good while with decent food management.... Had my kitchen overseer up to half decent. Then my metalworks stopped working. R42 can't come to the Mac soon enough.
I am sure that I have seen it working before. Having say best skill, carpentry etc. Military I always see my NCO having but I'm sure as I say I saw 1 work crew with it once.
With 42E, I have received new overseers with best skills. But no starting overseer seems to show one, no matter how skilled they become.
My first game in 42E I got a cook with pretty high skills although I can't remember what her level was called (I think it was the one above 'middling')- it made a HUGE difference - when she was cooking her progress bar was blue instead of brown and she could finish any meal in about 2 seconds. It was awesome.
The skills themselves certainly seem to be working fine. What doesn't seem to be working is the display of "Workcrew best skill". So it seems to be just a cosmetic/visual problem. When I'm not testing something specific I tend to always embark with the skilled overseers option. And whilst it does tend to sometimes fail to give one or two overseers a higher skill, the ones that are higher are noticeably more efficient in their focused profession. Having a overseer from day 1 with a higher skill in farming makes quite the difference.