Skills show the abilities a learner currently holds or is working to develop. Each skill is recorded on the learner's profile, giving a structured view of their current capabilities and development areas. By linking Skills to Goals, CPD, and Content, you can track progress, support career development, and measure growth across your organisation.
The Skills screen has three tabs: Skills, where you manage individual skills; Taxonomy, where you build the category structure skills sit within; and Permissions, where you control who can create and manage skills across the platform.
Note:
Only Super Admins, Learning Managers, and Tag Managers can access Manage > Skills.
Skills
The Skills tab lists every skill in your organisation, showing linked people, content, goals, and taxonomy categories. Use it to create, edit, delete, or export skills.
Creating a Skill
In the Thrive menu, go to Manage > Skills.
In the Skills page click + Create Skill.
(Optional) Add a Description of up to 500 characters to briefly describe the purpose of the skill.
(Optional) Under Nest under, select an existing category to nest this one beneath it. A category must already exist to appear here.
Note:
To create a category, see Creating a Category.
Choose the skill settings:
Endorse skill: Separates official company skills from user-generated skills. Endorsed skills are locked by default.
Lock skill: Adds a locked label to signal to other admins that this skill shouldn't be edited. Locking is a signal only – it doesn't prevent changes.
In the Translations section, then click + Add translations. Select one or more of your platform's supported languages – Thrive translates the skill's name and description automatically. You can review or edit any translation at any time after saving.
In the Collections section, you can add the skill to a collection so it appears in the right place on the Explore page. You can also upload a thumbnail here (JPEG or PNG, 4:3 ratio, maximum width 610px).
Click Create skill.
The new skill will appear in the Skills table, where you can search, filter, and sort the full list at any time.
Bulk Actions
To manage several skills at once, select the checkbox next to each skill. You can then:
Delete: Removes all selected skills in one action
Add to collection: Adds all selected skills to an existing collection
Convert: Converts the selected skill to a topic. This updates all linked content, people, and collections, and can't be undone.
Exporting Skills
To export the full skill list as a CSV file, click Export. This is useful for auditing your skills taxonomy or sharing it outside the platform.
Skill Details
Click a skill from the Skills table to open its Skill details screen. If the skill is endorsed, an Endorsed label appears near the top.
The Skill usage section shows how the skill is being used across your organisation:
People: The number of learners with this skill linked to their profile.
Content: The number of content items tagged with this skill.
Skill boost: The number of content items configured to boost this skill on completion.
Goals: The number of goals that include this skill.
To make changes, click Edit skill or Delete skill at the bottom of the screen.
Taxonomy
The Taxonomy tab groups your skill tags into categories, so you can manage large skill libraries at scale. Build a hierarchy of categories, then nest skills and other categories beneath them.
Creating a Category
On the Skills screen, click the Taxonomy tab.
Click + Create category.
Enter a Name for the category. Category names must be unique across your Thrive platform.
(Optional) Under Nest under, select an existing category to nest this one beneath it. A category must already exist to appear here.
(Optional) Turn off Translate this category if you don't want Thrive to translate the category automatically. This is on by default – when it's on, we translate the category's details into all your platform's supported languages when you save.
Click Create category.
The new category appears in the taxonomy table, showing its number of sub-categories, skills, and connections.
Managing a Category
Click the three-dot menu (⋮) on a category's row to:
Add category: Connect an Existing category to this one, or add a New category.
Add skill: Tag an Existing skill to this category, or add a New skill.
View details: Opens the Category details panel, showing the category's usage – its number of sub-categories, skills, and connections.
Edit category: Change the category's name, nesting, or translations.
Delete category: Permanently removes the category.
Permissions
The Permissions tab controls who can create and manage tags across the platform.
Restricting Tag Creation
Turn on Restrict learners from modifying or generating tags to limit tag creation and management to users with admin and tag manager permissions.
Managing Tag Managers
The Permissions tab lists your current tag managers, along with their last login.
To add a tag manager:
Click + Add tag manager.
Search for one or more users by name or email.
Click Add tag managers.
To remove a tag manager, click the delete icon on their row.