What is a skills gap analysis?
A skills gap analysis compares the skills your organisation needs with the skills it currently has. The difference is the gap. Done properly, it turns a vague feeling ("we're weak on cloud") into something you can count ("we need four people at practitioner level in Azure and we have one").
You can run one for a single person (what do they need for their role or next role?), for a team, or for the whole organisation.
How to do a skills gap analysis
- Start from the goalWhat is the team or business trying to do in the next 6 to 18 months? A new product, a migration, a partner tier, an audit? The skills you need follow from that.
- List the skills requiredFor each team, list the skills and certifications that goal depends on. Keep it to the ones that genuinely matter.
- Set targetsFor each skill, decide how many people you need and at what level. For example, three people at practitioner or above in Azure networking.
- Measure current skillsRate everyone against the same scale. A self-assessment checked by managers is usually the most practical method; see how to assess employee skills.
- Calculate the gapsTarget minus current count, per skill. Note certificates expiring in the period too: they're gaps that haven't arrived yet.
- PrioritiseRank gaps by risk and impact, not size alone. A gap of one in a critical skill can matter more than a gap of five in a nice-to-have.
- Act and re-measureAssign each gap an action, an owner and a date, then re-rate after the training to check it worked.
A worked example
A 12-person IT team is moving its servers to Azure next year. Its gap analysis might look like this:
| Skill | Target (level 2+) | Current | Gap | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure infrastructure | 4 | 1 | 3 | High: the migration depends on it |
| Azure networking | 3 | 1 | 2 | High: single point of failure |
| PowerShell | 5 | 3 | 2 | Medium |
| Windows Server | 4 | 6 | none | Covered |
| Azure Administrator cert | 2 held | 2 (1 expires in 3 months) | 1 at risk | High: renew now |
The resulting plan: certify two more people in Azure infrastructure, cross-train one person on Azure networking alongside the current expert, renew the expiring certificate, and run an internal PowerShell session. Windows Server needs nothing; the team is over-covered and some of that time can move to Azure.
Ways to close a skills gap
Train
Courses, certifications and coaching for people who already have most of the foundation.
Cross-skill
Pair people with the in-house expert. Cheap, fast, and it removes single points of failure.
Redeploy
Move someone who already has the skill from a team that's over-covered.
Hire or contract
When the gap is large, urgent, or needs expertise nobody has yet.
Choosing between these is covered in upskilling vs reskilling vs cross-skilling.
Common mistakes
- Analysing everything. A list of 200 skills produces a report nobody acts on. Focus on what the goal needs.
- No targets. Without a target there is no gap, just a list of ratings.
- Ignoring expiry dates. A certificate that lapses next quarter is a gap you can already see.
- One-off analysis. Skills and goals change. Re-measure at least twice a year, or keep the matrix live so the gaps update themselves.
Our free template has a gap summary sheet: enter a target per skill and it counts the gap. In SkillsLedger, objectives such as "four people at practitioner in Azure by June" update live as people's ratings change, and the org overview shows the weakest skills by department.