# Skills Scan: What It Is, How to Rate Yourself and What Happens Next Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/skills-scan/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/skills-scan.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving building self-awareness at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer A skills scan rates your current knowledge, skills and behaviors. Learn why it matters, why low scores are expected and how to rate yourself honestly. ## Key facts - Title: Skills Scan: What It Is, How to Rate Yourself and What Happens Next - Category: Types of Skills - Primary skill: Building Self-Awareness - Related skills: Setting Goals, Building Confidence - Primary keyword: skills scan - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/skills-scan/ ## What this page covers - A skills scan rates your current knowledge, skills and behaviors. Learn why it matters, why low scores are expected and how to rate yourself honestly. - Practical guidance for skills scan - How this topic connects to Building Self-Awareness ## Detailed explanation A skills scan is a structured self-assessment of where you stand today: you rate your current knowledge, skills and behaviors against a defined set, usually the standard for an apprenticeship or training program. It is a starting measurement, not a test: it shows what you already have and what is still to learn. Even so, judging yourself on paper is uncomfortable. Rate too low and you worry it will count against you; rate too high and you wonder who will check. Both worries have clear answers, and they turn on one idea: a skills scan rewards accuracy, not a high score. ## What is a skills scan? A skills scan asks you to rate yourself, area by area, against a list of the knowledge, skills and behaviors a role or program requires. In apprenticeships, that list is the occupational standard for the job you are training into, and the scan records how far you already meet it. You may meet it before you have even started: De Montfort University, for example, asks every candidate for its higher and degree apprenticeships to complete an online skills scan as part of the application. There is also a second meaning. University career centers use SkillScan, a card sort for identifying [transferable skills](/knowledge/types-of-skills/define-transferable-skills/), which is covered further down. Both versions share one purpose: a snapshot of your skills today, so the next step can be planned from evidence rather than guesswork. ## Why do I have to do a skills scan for my apprenticeship? Because your program is planned from it. GOV.UK's guidance on apprenticeship initial assessment requires the training provider to carry out an initial assessment before the apprenticeship begins, comparing what you already know and can do against what the occupational standard requires for competence. A self-assessment such as a skills scan is often the first stage; the provider then assesses the evidence gathered. The point is to find the genuinely new learning. An apprenticeship has to teach you things you cannot already do, so prior learning matters: where it is recognized, the employer must agree a corresponding reduction in the apprenticeship's cost. For you, that means the scan is not an exam to pass. It is the starting measurement your whole program is built around, and an accurate one gets you a program that fits. ## What happens if I score low on my skills scan? Usually nothing bad, because low scores are what the process expects. The University of Kent's apprenticeship skills scan uses a 0–10 scale and says plainly that it does not expect you to begin with a high level of expertise, since building that expertise is exactly what the apprenticeship is for. A row of modest ratings simply describes someone at the start of a program designed for people at the start. It helps to see a low rating for what it is: a gap you have not closed yet, not a judgment of your ability. The same holds for the workplace skills around the technical ones. Every one of them can be learned, and a low starting point only tells you where the learning begins. ## Can you score too high on a skills scan? Yes, and it is the less obvious risk. Sheffield Hallam University's skills scan FAQs note that a scan showing too little new learning can be a reason an applicant does not proceed onto an apprenticeship. The logic follows from the previous answer: if your ratings say you can already do nearly everything in the standard, there is little left for the program to teach. Inflating every score to look capable can therefore work against you. If you genuinely are experienced in an area, say so and back it up; that is what recognizing prior learning exists for. But a rating should describe what you can do now, not what you hope an employer wants to see. ## How do I rate myself honestly on a skills scan? Anchor each rating in an example. Self-ratings are subjective, and Kent's scan says as much: initial judgments need greater context. That context is evidence. Before you settle on a number, ask what you could point to: a task you completed, a result you achieved, feedback someone gave you. A score tied to a specific example is easier to explain in the follow-up conversation, and far more useful for planning, than one based on a general feeling of being good or bad at something. Underselling distorts the picture as much as inflating does, and it is easy to discount what you learned in your education because it does not feel like work experience. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work put it this way: > As a student you don't expect to be able to contribute anything. Sometimes I felt I could — because being in the education system now, you're actually better placed academically than people who left it years ago. Her point applies directly to the form in front of you. Before choosing a low number by default, check whether you are discounting something simply because you learned it in a classroom. If an area feels hard to rate, that is usually a sign you have not yet looked for the evidence, not that the evidence is missing. ## Who sees my skills scan answers? In an apprenticeship, rarely just you. The self-rating is usually the first step, not the last: under the GOV.UK guidance, the provider goes on to assess the evidence of prior learning, and Kent notes that your employer may be asked to review your answers. Some providers build evidence into the process itself. NCFE's Skills Review, for instance, lets learners and employers review and add evidence of the skills, knowledge and behaviors gained before a program starts. That is reassuring rather than threatening. A rating you can back with an example will hold up when someone reviews it. Write your answers as if you will be asked to explain them, because you may be. ## Can I get my skills scan result looked at again? Sometimes; it depends on why the outcome was what it was. Multiverse, an apprenticeship provider, separates outcomes it can look at again when you have more information from outcomes based on fixed rules, which it cannot change. A rejection based on existing skills or qualifications falls in the second group. Sheffield Hallam, meanwhile, allows a Skills Scan Review to be started later in the apprenticeship, not only at the start. The practical lesson is that the first attempt carries the most weight. New evidence can reopen a judgment call; it cannot reopen a rule. Accuracy the first time is worth more than a second chance. ## Is a skills scan the same as the SkillScan card sort? No, though they are related. SkillScan is a card sort that university career centers use to help students identify transferable skills. Northeastern University's career center describes it as useful for choosing a major, planning internships, writing résumés and preparing for interviews, and notes that it gives you a vocabulary for describing your skills. UMass Lowell describes it as revealing [your strengths](/knowledge/setting-goals/play-to-your-strengths/), the skills you enjoy and the skills worth developing, and refers students to a career advisor to take it. The difference is the question each one answers. The apprenticeship scan asks how much of a specific program you need. The card sort asks what you are good at, what you enjoy, and how to put that into words. If you are still [choosing a direction](/knowledge/setting-goals/how-to-choose-a-career/) rather than joining a program, the second is the one you want. ## What do I do with my skills scan results? Treat them as a plan, not a verdict. Both versions of the scan look forward: they exist to show what is worth learning next. Pick out two things. First, the areas you rated highly and enjoy using. These are your strengths, and they deserve a place in your applications, your conversations with your manager and the projects you volunteer for. Second, a short list of gaps: not every low score, just the two or three that matter most for the work in front of you this year. Then use the words the scan gave you. A scan hands you precise language for skills you might otherwise describe vaguely, and that language is exactly what applications and interviews ask for. One limit is worth knowing. A skills scan measures you against one program's standard or one deck of cards. The workplace skills that go with you into any role, such as communicating clearly, managing your time and working with a manager, are often only partly covered, so it is worth [mapping those workplace skills](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) as well. Each of them can be learned, and your [development plan](/knowledge/improve-skills/skills-development-plan/) is stronger when it covers both. ## What turns a skills scan into progress Look back over these answers and the same sequence keeps appearing: an honest picture of where you stand, a sense of which direction it points, and the willingness to work on what it shows. None of that lives in the form itself. **Building Self-Awareness** is what makes the ratings honest. Knowing what you are genuinely good at, as opposed to merely competent at, comes from asking how a kind of work goes for you: how you approach it, how it feels, and what results it produces. Feedback adds what you cannot see yourself. Checking your self-ratings against the view of a manager, tutor or colleague is the quickest way to find blind spots, whether they run toward overestimating or underestimating yourself. A gap that turns up this way is not a flaw in who you are; it is something you have not learned yet. **Setting Goals** is what gives the result a direction. The skills you rate highly and enjoy using mark out your strengths zone, and that zone is a good guide to which roles, modules, placements or projects to aim for next. Keep the horizon short: a focus for the next six to eighteen months, drawn from what the scan showed, will serve you better than a five-year plan built on one snapshot. And let the goals be yours. The scan's categories describe a standard; they do not decide what you want from work. **Building Confidence** is what turns a list of gaps into action. Rating yourself generously does not build it; practice does. Take one weak area, break it into small steps, and get comfortable at each level before moving to the next, accepting that working on something you are not yet good at will feel uncomfortable for a while. Each step adds evidence, and evidence is what the next scan or review will ask you for. A low starting score then stops being discouraging and becomes the first entry in a plan. Self-assessment gets sharper with a second, structured reference point. The **free Job Skills Test** gives you one: a quick reading that shows [which skill to build first](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/), with these three measured alongside the rest of the **twelve work skills** it covers. Whatever it shows, each of them is learnable from where you are now. ## A starting point you set yourself You might recognize yourself in one of these answers more than the others. If you have ever hovered between two numbers on a rating scale because you could not think of an example to justify the higher one, you were already doing what an honest skills scan asks for: looking for evidence before claiming a skill. That instinct is the raw material for everything above. None of these skills is a fixed quality; each grows with practice, in whichever direction you choose to take it, and you stay yourself throughout. Honest self-rating does not stop with this form either. It returns in progress reviews and appraisals, with a little more riding on it each time, and every round is easier when the habit is already in place. The natural next move is to look beyond this one form, whatever it said about you. ## Take stock of your workplace skills From here, the useful step is to give the skills that travel with you the same honest look you gave the scan. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills: in 7 minutes it shows where you stand across all twelve skills that shape how you work with others and manage yourself, and which of them would make the biggest difference to develop first. ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? A skills scan rates your current knowledge, skills and behaviors. Learn why it matters, why low scores are expected and how to rate yourself honestly. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Building Self-Awareness. It also relates to Setting Goals, Building Confidence. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/setting-goals.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/confidence.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/skills-scan/ Preferred summary: "A skills scan rates your current knowledge, skills and behaviors. Learn why it matters, why low scores are expected and how to rate yourself honestly." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.