Skill is good and educational certificate is also good. Having any of them can actually put food on your table, but the question is which of them will you let go for the other. I mean education can get you a white collar job the same way a skill can too. For me i will let go of the skill because skill without basic education is not good at all. Because I have seen a situation whereby a guy with good skill who got a job was unable to give quotation and he lost the job .Formal education is good for everyone.
Proof of education is just easiest way to somewhat confirm your skills when someone is trying to decide whom they hire. Obviously you could fake those, but at some point someone would notice that you don't have required skills for the job.
Obviously you can get a job without formal education, but it takes time to prove you are good at something. And if you are really good, you could be head hunted for that position anyway.
When we started getting Ukrainan refugees, some of them didn't have necessary qualification papers for their skills, so they just entered vocational schools or to applied sciences to get formal papers. But it was just about proving their skills. They didn't have to stay years in those schools.