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Reporting Impact & Funding Support

The eight essential skills icons arranged in a circle

The Universal Framework
A Shared Language for Impact

The Skills Builder Universal Framework for essential skills provides a shared language and common approach to building essential skills to address the skills gap across contexts, and at every stage of life.

Created in collaboration with the CIPD, Business in the Community, and the Gatsby Foundation, the Framework breaks down eight essential skills into 16 teachable, measurable steps. This provides a clear ‘roadmap’ for progression, from Step 1 to Mastery at Step 16.

By embedding the Framework, you can robustly measure the impact of your activities.

Telling Your Story – Measurement & Reporting

Quantative Data

How can the essential skills be measured?

For Individuals (Benchmark): A free online tool where individuals assess themselves against the Framework using a 5-point Likert scale. It generates a report of strengths and areas for improvement, allowing scores to be revisited to measure progress over time.

For Groups (Hub): Track progress across cohorts, download snapshots for reporting, and use educational resources to observe skill steps in action.

Qualitative Data

How can the steps support rich and robust feedback?

Reflective Practice: Use skills-based questions to guide individuals to clearly articulate their learning. Access these by visiting any skill step and scrolling to the bottom of the webpage.

Holistic Impact: These questions help beneficiaries and staff tell a holistic story of impact, which can be embedded into your own surveys and reports.

Example Impact Statement
“A recent evaluation has shown that participants make on average between 1 and 1.5 steps of progress across all eight essential skills… compared to the 0.72 steps of progress a young person can expect to make over the course of a year without targeted support.”

Supporting Evidence

Need evidence to back up your application?
Read our latest research to discover further insights.

93%
of business leaders

say essential employability skills are important for improving young people’s employment prospects.

97%
of UK teachers

say essential skills are as important as academic outcomes.

90%
of young people

think essential skills are important to overcome difficulty and adversity.

Essential skills unlock learning, boosting training and coaching outcomes, bolstering perseverance and self belief. They halve the likelihood of being out of work, and increase earnings across a lifetime. They even boost wellbeing and life satisfaction.

Fundraising toolkit

The Skills Builder Fundraising Toolkit is a practical resource that provides the text and evidence you need to articulate the value of essential skills confidently and professionally. You can copy, paste, and adapt the high-quality, evidence-backed text templates to suit your specific project

View the fundraising toolkit
A screenshot of the Skills Builder Fundraising toolkit previewed on a modern laptop.

Including Membership Costs in Bids

You may want to apply for the cost of your Skills Builder Membership as part of a funding bid. Direct support through membership can be included as:

  • Impact measurement consultancy support.
  • Benchmark admin accounts for data tracking.
  • Quality assurance of your programme.
  • Bespoke capacity-building support for your team.
See details and membership costs