Curated talent is Upwork's term for freelancers and agencies that Upwork staff have pre-screened and put forward to a client, rather than talent the client found through open search or an open job post.
Most hiring on Upwork is open: anyone with the Connects can submit a proposal and the client sorts the pile. Curated talent is the closed alternative. Upwork's talent specialists read a client's brief and select a handful of profiles from the marketplace, drawing on work history, the Job Success Score, badges such as Expert-Vetted and prior performance with similar clients. The client sees the shortlist, interviews and contracts through the usual tools. Upwork offers curation in several forms: Talent Scout for individual job posts, and managed programmes for Enterprise clients that need a bench of vetted people on standing contracts. Which clients can use it and what it costs are set by Upwork and may change.
For freelancers and agencies, curation is not something to apply for. Upwork picks from existing profiles, so the public record is the application: earnings, completed jobs, a complete profile and a clean score. Being curated for one brief does not confer a badge and is not visible on the profile.
The term is sometimes confused with Expert-Vetted. Expert-Vetted is a standing designation held by a person; curated talent is a selection made for a particular client's need, and a freelancer can be curated without holding any badge at all.
How Upwork Insights uses it
This term describes Upwork's own rules or product rather than a figure the index measures; the pages that do carry live figures are the stats and rate pages.