Skills matrix templates Blog Feature

10 Free Skills Matrix Templates in Excel and ClickUp

What makes a great leader? Doing whatever it takes to ensure each member of their team succeeds. 🎉

Great company leaders know it’s essential to invest in the growth and development of each employee. How? By ensuring individuals don’t stay stagnant in their career, constantly acquire new skills, and consistently increase their level of expertise.

A skills matrix is a tool used by HR teams and department leaders to log, monitor, and ultimately better the skills of each member of the team. A skills matrix creates a grid of every member of the department or project, followed by the required skills of their corresponding position. Over time, a skills matrix can be used to improve hiring processes, resource allocation, and training and development. 👏👏

Wondering how to create a skills matrix? Keep reading. If you’re looking to build a skills matrix, you don’t need to start from scratch. Below, we dive into what a skills matrix is, what makes a great template, and 10 skills matrix templates to leverage at your company. 📚

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What is a Skills Matrix Template?

Put simply, a skills matrix maps out which skills your team needs to be successful. Human resources professionals and department heads often use skills matrices to offer a visual representation of which skills are required, covered, and missing from each project. 👍

A skills matrix (sometimes called a competency matrix) creates a grid of the necessary skills or traits required for each department or project. While each skills matrix will vary depending upon your unique organization, a sample template might list a member of your team for each column and the desired skill sets for each row. From there, team leaders can quickly identify skill gaps within the organization.

You can find a paid-for skills matrix template in most employee monitoring software platforms. Or you can find plenty of free, downloadable templates online. Simply download the template to Excel, Word, or another tool, personalize the skill sets to fit your organization, and update it regularly to monitor employee progress.

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What Makes a Good Skills Matrix Template?

The best skills matrix templates help your organization better allocate tasks and responsibilities between team members. The right template should be easy to understand, be easy to update, and offer a 360-degree overview of the strengths and skill opportunities for each department. 👊

With the right skills matrix, company leadership is better equipped to:

  • Make better hiring decisions: A skills matrix is an essential employee management tool. If a particular skill is absent within your entire team, it could be a sign you need to make a new hire
  • Conduct new training: If a particular skill is only present in a few team members, it could be an opportunity to ramp up your learning and development opportunities. Consider hosting a lunch and learn or internal training day to get team members up to speed
  • Offer promotions: If you find a particular team member who’s skill level is more advanced than their counterparts, they might be better suited for a management role
  • Assign tasks and responsibilities: Let’s face facts—people enjoy performing tasks where they excel. By analyzing each team member’s soft and technical skills, you can assign tasks according to individual strengths
  • Streamline performance reviews: Performance reviews are mutually beneficial for supervisors and subordinates. The right skills matrix can help inform team members about which skills they should work on
  • Set individual goals: To help employees hone their skills quarter after quarter, use a skills matrix to set goals applicable to each position
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10 Skills Matrix Templates to Use in 2024

Looking for a skills matrix template to dive deeper into the strengths of each team member? To get a visual representation of the skills of each department, consider leveraging these templates.

1. ClickUp Board Skills Matrix Template

Board Skills Matrix Templates by ClickUp
Measure the skills proficiency of each team member with this Board Skills Matrix Template by ClickUp

Looking for an incredibly simple way to track the skills of each team member? The ClickUp Board Skills Matrix Template has an easy-to-follow layout that dedicates a row for each team member. Each column is reserved for a skill you want to track, such as leadership, financial literacy, or risk management. 

If an employee proves proficient within a certain skill, simply give that column a checkmark. You can easily swap out employee names to reflect new hires or add, swap out, or delete skills to best reflect the needs of each department.

2. ClickUp Skills Mapping Template

Skills matrix templates: Skills Mapping Template by ClickUp
Log and monitor the hard and soft skills for each project or team member with the Skills Mapping Template by ClickUp

If you want to keep your company running smoothly, you need to pair the right people with the right tasks. How do you do that? By understanding where their strengths lie.

With ClickUp’s Skills Mapping Template, you can identify, track, and map each employee’s unique skill set. Simply list each team member (grouped by department), and give them a ranking between one and five based on their proficiency of each given skill. Once the template is filled out, you can identify skill gaps for each individual and the larger department.

Over time, the Skills Mapping Template can help you make better decisions on hiring, training, and learning development opportunities.

3. ClickUp Training Matrix Template

Skills matrix templates: Training Matrix Template by ClickUp
Streamline employee training and workforce planning using this handy Training Matrix Template by ClickUp

Looking to create an effective training program? ClickUp’s Training Matrix Template makes it easy to manage, log, and monitor your team’s skill sets. Leveraging the template on a regular basis can help you streamline your training and development programs.

With the Training Matrix Template, you can track soft and hard skills for each staff member. Each row offers space to write the employee name, role, department, and individual skills. Roles and departments are color-coded, while strengths offer an easy-to-follow ranking system.

You can create custom views to get a high-level overview of employee performance. Plus, you can create custom statuses to mark tasks as complete, not with the company, and under review.

4. ClickUp Staffing Matrix Template

Skills matrix templates: Staffing Matrix Template by ClickUp
Make strategic hiring decisions and get your employees the promotions they deserve through this Staffing Matrix Template by ClickUp

Are you scaling your company to the next level? Before you hire a new team member, you’ll need to know which skill sets you want to add to your arsenal.

ClickUp’s Staffing Matrix Template itemizes the skills needed for each particular role. For each position, simply create a list of desired traits. From there, you can check-off each specific skill, giving upper management a visual on missing skills within each department.

The Staffing Matrix offers a grid layout where you can list each role, followed by the job description, department, and required skills. Simply swap out each custom field, or create your own unique color-coding system to best fit your company.

5. ClickUp Technical Skills Matrix Template

Technical Skills Matrix Templates by ClickUp
Track the nitty-gritty technical skills of your entire staff by leveraging this simple Technical Skills Matrix Template by ClickUp

Keeping tabs on technical skills is imperative to the growth of any company—particularly when dealing with IT, engineering, or product management departments. If you’re looking to transform your hiring process or internal training, you should leverage ClickUp’s Technical Skills Matrix Template.

This skills matrix template helps teams navigate the complexities of talent management. Each department gets one row dedicated to each employee. Then, each column focuses on a certain skill, such as software development, coding languages, testing procedures, or debugging.

The template offers space to create your own skills rating legend, ranking each skill from one to four. If an individual is an expert within a given area, write a four. If someone is a beginner, write a one. 

The template automatically color-codes itself based on your ranking, offering a high-level overview of your team’s technical proficiency.

6. ClickUp IT Skills Matrix Template

IT Skills Matrix Template by ClickUp
Record, monitor, and gauge exactly which hard skills your IT department needs to be successful using this IT Skills Matrix Template by ClickUp

Every IT department needs the right mix of skills and expertise to be successful. With the IT Skills Matrix Template by ClickUp, you can track your team’s strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in technical skills.

This grid offers a visual representation of the degree of expertise for each person within your IT department. To add a new skill set, simply go to the Skill Board view, click the plus sign, then add the area of expertise. You can view and evaluate the skills of your team as a whole, or dive into each individual of your department.

7. Excel Skills Matrix Template by AIHR

Screenshot of the Excel Skills Matrix Template by AIHR
via AIHR

Looking for a simple way to assess and manage the skills of your team? Skills assessments help company leadership invest in employee development, make smart hiring decisions, and allocate resources for each project.

With this straightforward Excel Skills Matrix Template by AIHR, your organization can easily keep your skills management up-to-date. Simply write each employee name at the top of the columns and dedicate a skill to each row. Then, record each team member’s proficiency and level of interest for each skill.

8. Excel Skills Matrix Template by AG5

Screenshot of the Excel Skills Matrix Template by AG5
via AG5

Tracking employee skills doesn’t have to be a complicated process. With this free template by AG5, you can track employees’ hard and soft skills with ease.

The skills matrix is available for download via Excel, Microsoft Word, and PDF file formats. Simply download in your chosen format, then fill out team member names and available skills. The template comes with a built-in colored palette, with each individual ranked with one of the following statuses: no knowledge, beginner, independent, expert, or trainer.

9. Excel Skills Matrix Template by Skilltree

Screenshot of the Excel Skills Matrix Template by Skilltree
via Skilltree

Here’s another template that doesn’t require skills matrix software and can be used directly in Excel. Plus, it’s free to download.

This Excel template by Skilltree contains everything you need to run a skills gap analysis of your company. Simply list the first name, last name, and role of each employee, then their desired soft and hard skills. Each employee gets their own row, where you can easily record proficiency levels for every skill you’re analyzing.

The template offers a visualization of the strengths and skills gaps for each project or department. Upon quarterly review sessions, employees can fill it out as a tool for self-evaluation, or leaders can document proficiency levels to assign tasks, grant promotions, or assign project leaders.

10. Excel Skills Matrix Template by CIToolkit

Screenshot of the Excel Skills Matrix Template by CIToolkit
via CIToolkit

Skills matrix templates can be an invaluable communication tool between employees and department leaders. A skills matrix can easily identify gaps in employee training, certifications, or education for the entire team. From there, company leadership can revamp the onboarding process, promote higher education, or even provide onsite training.

To start the conversation, consider downloading the Excel Skills Matrix Template by CIToolkit. This effortless template allows you to evaluate the skillsets of your entire team. Simply record team member names in the left column, and add a skill at the start of each row.

This matrix can easily be customized to suit your company requirements. From there, you can revamp your training needs to help your employees acquire new skills.

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Invest in Employee Development By Using ClickUp’s Skills Matrix Templates

The success of your company depends on the success of each individual employee. To ensure the members of your team are honing the skills they need, use a skills matrix template. 🤩

A skills matrix template is an essential team management tool leveraged by HR professionals and team leaders. By logging each employee’s proficiency in hard and soft skills, you can make better hiring decisions, improve employee onboarding, and ensure no team member is overworked. 

To start leveraging a skills matrix template, use ClickUp. With ClickUp, you can easily swap out custom fields, alternate between different views, and ultimately personalize your template to fit your organization. Plus, you’ll get more than a skills matrix template with a full suite of project management features, 1,000+ integrations, 100MB of storage, unlimited tasks, and free forever features.

Try ClickUp today.

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