At Skills Builder Partnership, our mission is to ensure that one day, everyone will build the essential skills to succeed. Following the launch of Directed Assessments, we are excited to reveal the second major update rolling out to Skills Builder Benchmark: Learner Evidence.

Over the past few months, we have listened closely to feedback from educators, employers, and impact organisations using Benchmark across the globe. You asked for greater flexibility, deeper validation, and richer qualitative context when assessing essential skills. In response, we are thrilled to launch Learner Evidence - a feature designed to empower individuals to build a robust, personal portfolio of their capabilities.

Why we built Learner Evidence

Standard frequency scales - such as rating a skill from "almost never" to "almost always" - are a fantastic foundation for tracking skill development over time. However, while numerical ratings provide a clear baseline, adding real-world context brings a learner’s true progress to life.

We created Learner Evidence to help individuals capture the full story behind their scores and reflect with even greater confidence. It acts as a personal evidence portfolio where learners can document real-world projects, wins, or scenarios, ensuring that every rating is backed by meaningful experience.

Key benefits: Deeper reflection and rich context

Learner Evidence changes how individuals engage with their own skill development, moving away from standalone scores to a robust, qualitative picture of capability.

Deeper self-reflection: The feature creates a meaningful pause during self-assessments, encouraging learners to ground their scores in genuine experience before making a choice.

Skill articulation: It equips learners with the habit, confidence, and language needed to clearly articulate how their real-world actions translate into essential skills.

Rich, qualitative context: By enriching simple numerical scores with qualitative proof, Learner Evidence builds a far more robust and credible picture of an individual's capability.

How it works in practice

With Learner Evidence, building a portfolio of real-world proof is seamless and integrated directly into the Benchmark experience:

Build a personal portfolio: Learners can document real-world projects, achievements, or scenarios and tag them across multiple Framework skills and steps.

Surface banked evidence: When completing a self-assessment, previously banked evidence automatically surfaces to inform and support the learner's rating choices.

Log in the moment: Fresh evidence can also be logged on the spot during reflection, capturing insights exactly when they happen.

See it in action

Want to see how Learner Evidence empowers individuals to articulate their skills? Watch our short walkthrough video below:

Keep an eye out over the coming weeks for our final release in the Benchmark update series.

Log in to Skills Builder Benchmark today to start exploring Learner Evidence.