content-skills-assessment-make-a-copy.xlsx

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	Skill	First assessment	Second assessment	Third assessment	Guide to level 1 = beginner	Guide to level 2 = mid-level (in addition to beginner)	Guide to level 3 = senior/lead (in addition to mid-level)

2	Agile working	1	0	0	You have experience of working in agile teams, and are aware of agile ceremonies and tools. You can advise colleagues on how and why agile methods are used. You can adapt, reflect and are responsive to feedback.	You can work in a fast-paced, evolving environment and use an iterative and flexible approach to enable rapid delivery. You are willing to take risks and learn from mistakes. You contribute to the team's awareness of each other's work and how it relates to objectives and user needs. You can articulate and advocate for the role of content in multidisciplinary teams. You work collaboratively with colleagues from other disciplines.	You can identify and evaluate the best processes or methods to use, helping the team decide the best approach. You help teams manage and visualise outcomes, prioritise work, define scope and agree a minimum viable product (MVP).
3	Communicating and presenting	1	2	0	You actively contribute during meetings, sometimes leading or co-leading. You use appropriate methods to keep your team updated on your work.	You regularly lead meetings and present at group sessions such as show and tells.	You communicate successfully, including at senior levels. You seek out opportunities to improve communication with colleagues and the wider organisation.
4	Content audits	2	3	0	You can complete a content audit if given direction. You can make inferences from an audit to inform content choices, with assistance.	You know when a content audit is needed and how to scope it. You can set or adapt an auditing approach to make it suitable for the goal.	You assist others in knowing when a content audit should be used, how to scope it and how to apply findings to influence content decisions.
5	Data and analytics	0	0	3	You can use analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Google Trends and Hotjar to create reports and insights. You use data to inform content choices.	You can confidently identify useful sets of metrics from a range of tools. You can infer user behaviour sensitively from data, and draw meaning from them to inform content design, alongside other research methods.	You can work with colleagues to establish appropriate performance measures for the products and services you're working on.
6	Information architecture	0	2	0	You're aware of some basic principles of information architecture including structuring content on a page and enabling user journeys.	You can take a user-centred approach to structuring content and know how to validate and iterate your ideas. You keep defined user journeys in mind when putting content together.	You can use a range of techniques to design, test and iterate information architecture.
7	Journey mapping	1	0	0	You can map steps within a journey or partial journey, and plan content work to support it.	You can confidently map existing and proposed user journeys, including online and offline steps. You can present journey maps effectively and use them to align colleagues and prioritise work.	You have a deep understanding of end-to-end journeys and how content is affected within these journeys. You can identify where journey fixes or content improvements need to be made. You can advise others on journey mapping methods and approaches.
8	Microcopy and UX writing	0	0	0	You're aware of the differences between microcopy and longer-form content.	You can create microcopy that reliably helps users progress through a journey or transaction and achieve their goal. You contribute to relevant parts of the content style guide or content design patterns.	You can advise others on approaches to microcopy, based on findings from user research.
9	Problem solving	0	0	0	You work creatively on design challenges with guidance, and may need from others.	You're able to choose from a variety of methods to collaborate with others and solve design challenges.	You're aware of different approaches or techniques that could be used to solve design problems, such as design thinking, design sprints or convergent/divergent thinking, but you're not dogmatic. You encourage colleagues to create time for the design process.
10	Strategic thinking	0	0	0	You work with others to shape and create content across channels, products or journeys. You contribute to iterating and improving processes and guidelines. You understand how your activities contribute to strategic goals.	You contribute to content strategy approaches, helping others to see and act upon strategic opportunties. You can collaborate to create content patterns or standards. You identify opportunities for, and initiate, content improvement projects.	You lead on designing and implementing strategic approaches to content, evaluating their impact and progress to make sure business objectives and the needs of users are being met. You lead and direct strategic content improvement projects, focussing effort in the areas of greatest priority and make sure goals and objectives are met.
11	User focus	0	0	0	You are aware of user research approaches and have observed sessions with participants. You understand the purpose of user stories and focus on user-centred design more widely.	You can identify ways to provide insights into a problem. You can formulate hypotheses, gain insights from data and user research, and make decisions on findings. You understand the range of different users who might access content and services and can identify their needs based on evidence. You can translate user stories into content that meets users’ needs and propose suitable design approaches. You can use quantitative and qualitative data about users to turn user insights into outcomes. You put accessibility at the heart of approaches to designing content and encourage others to do the same. You can coherently convey insights about users to stakeholders.	You collaborate with user researchers and performance analysts to advocate effectively for users. You understand the different types of user research, evidence and data and how they’re used at different stages of product development. You can clearly explain how decisions have been made. You're able to help prioritise and define approaches to best understand users. You can champion user research to focus on all users. You work with others and make recommendations on the best tools and methods to use.
12	User-centred content creation	0	0	0	You have some experience of writing and editing digital content. You understand the importance of content standards and style guidelines, and apply these to your work. You understand the importance of using data and evidence to make content decisions and you can ask the right questionsto get the data to shape and iterate content.	You design content to meet user needs and make complex language and processes easy to understand. You can present the right information in the right format that users need. You have robust experience of writing, editing and content production processes. You write in plain language in a way that users understand, making information accessible to everyone. You understand how to make content more accessible and can design content that works with common assistive technologies. You use data, research and evidence to review and evaluate content to make improvements. You consistently and effectively apply content standards and style guidelines to your work. You work to continuously improve content and understand why content lifecycle management is important.	You have responsibility for assuring the quality of content from more junior colleagues, coaching and guiding them to improve their practice. You make sure content is regularly reviewed and evaluated, contributing to continuous improvements and iteration. You encourage a continuous improvement mindset in teams. You direct and constructively critique others' work.
13	Visualising content	0	0	0	You are familiar with different methods for visualising content. You can develop your own wireframes or prototypes with assistance.	You can use a variety of prototyping and wireframing methods, including sketching or low-fidelity wireframing, or working on high-fidelity prototypes. You are confident using design systems and component libraries, and make good decisions on the most appropriate patterns to meet user needs through content. You can choose the best methods for conveying the intended approach to team members and stakeholders.	You coach other content designers, supporting them to develop their skills in visualising content.
14	Web authoring	0	0	0	You successfully author pages in a CMS.	You can confidently author pages in a CMS and assist others if they encounter problems.	You can advocate for improvements, for example to the CMS workflow or authoring experience.
15	Working with stakeholders	0	0	0	You have an open approach to working with stakeholders, using empathy and resilience to ensure content quality. You can follow a pre-defined fact check process. You communicate about the team's ways of working including user research and establishing user needs.	You can choose from a variety of tools and methods for collaborating with stakeholders, including co-design, pair writing and workshops. You build and maintain stakeholder networks, and find ways to improve collaboration.	You can advocate for improving organisational processes and ways of working with stakeholders. You coach team members, supporting them on appropriate communication and collaboration methods. You help your team to establish fact check and similar workflow processes.
16	Workshop facilitation	0	0	0	You contribute to planning workshops and lead small sections or activities.	You are able to define when is appropriate to use a workshop in the content production process alongside other collaboration methods. You can plan and lead or co-lead entire workshops, with team members or stakeholders. You can select appropriate workshop elements and evaluate how effective they are.	You train and coach others in how to prepare and run effective workshops.
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