A training needs analysis (TNA) compares the knowledge and skills people need for their jobs with what they can do now, and decides which gaps training should close first. Our free training needs analysis template in Excel takes you through it: organisation needs, a role by role gap analysis that works out priorities for you, a training plan and a filled-in worked example.
Excel workbook with drop-down lists, formulas and a worked example. No form to fill in.
This guide explains the five steps, how to use each sheet, how to spot a gap that training will not fix and how to choose the right training method.
What is a training needs analysis?
A TNA answers three questions, which the CIPD sets out in its factsheet on learning needs analysis: which capabilities your roles require, which already exist in the workforce, and where the gaps are.
Most analyses work at three levels:
- Organisation: the goals, changes, new laws and risks that need people to do something new or better.
- Role or team: the tasks each role must perform, and how well people perform them now.
- Individual: one person’s development needs, usually picked up through appraisals and personal development plans.
Training needs analysis and training needs assessment mean the same thing in practice. Learning needs analysis is the CIPD’s name for it.
Why a training needs analysis matters now
UK employers are spending less on training. In the government’s Employer Skills Survey 2024, 59% of UK employers had funded or arranged training in the previous 12 months. In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland that share was the lowest in the survey’s history, and total training expenditure in England was at its lowest since the series began in 2011.
At the same time, the full survey report found the most common reasons employers needed to upskill staff were new technologies and new legislative or regulatory requirements, each given by 37%. Less money and more change make it more important that training goes where it reduces risk or moves the business forward.
Some regulators expect a TNA in writing. The NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit asks health and care organisations for a training needs analysis covering all staff roles, endorsed by senior leadership. The ICO’s accountability framework expects one for information governance and data protection staff, and our guide to GDPR training for employees covers what it expects for everyone else.
How to do a training needs analysis in five steps
The HSE’s brief guide to health and safety training sets out a five-step approach that works for any kind of training, and our template follows it.
- Decide what the organisation needs. List the goals and changes for the next 12 months: new systems, products, sites or structures, new laws, audit findings, complaints, incidents and near misses. The HSE suggests reviewing injuries, near misses and risk assessments for health and safety needs. The law also requires health and safety training when people join and when they face new or increased risks, under regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
- Map roles and score the gaps. For each role, list the five to ten tasks that matter most, then score the level needed and the level people are at now. Use evidence rather than opinion: error and complaint data, LMS records, appraisals, manager interviews, observation and short surveys. The CIPD recommends a mix of methods, and reminds you to keep individual results confidential.
- Check the cause. Ask why each gap exists before you assume training is the answer (see the next section).
- Set priorities. Start with training the law requires. The HSE then suggests putting first the gaps that could cause serious harm, the training that benefits the most people, new recruits, people changing jobs and people using new equipment. The template scores the rest as gap multiplied by risk.
- Plan, deliver and check. Give each piece of training a method, an owner, a date and a measure of success. Afterwards, check whether people are now working as they were trained and whether performance has improved, and keep records so refresher training happens when it is due.
Is it really a training need?
Some gaps close with training and time. In the Employer Skills Survey 2024, most skills gaps were at least partly down to staff being new to the role (67%) or their training being only partly completed (58%).
Others will not. Employers said lack of motivation contributed to 39% of skills gaps, performance not improving despite training to 36% and staff retention problems to 32%. If a gap comes from an unclear process, poor tools, workload or management, another course will not close it.
Three questions help:
- Could a fully trained person do this well with the current process and tools?
- Is the problem spread across the role, or concentrated in one team, shift or location?
- Did people do it well before something else changed?
If the answers point away from skills, set “Training needed?” to No in the template and record the real fix. That is often the best value finding in the whole analysis.
How to use the training needs analysis template
The workbook has four working sheets and drop-down lists, so most cells need a click rather than typing.
- How to use: the steps, the scoring scales and where to find evidence.
- 1 Organisation: goals, changes and requirements, with the roles they affect and the deadline.
- 2 Roles and gaps: one row per role and task. Score the level needed and the current level from 0 (none) to 4 (can teach others), choose the main cause, say whether the law or a regulator requires the training and rate the risk from 1 to 3. The template works out the gap and the priority: Must do, a score from 1 to 12, Not a training fix or No gap. Sort by priority when you have finished.
- 3 Training plan: one row per piece of training, with the method, whether it is in-house, ready-made or custom built, length, start date, refresher interval, cost, owner and how you will measure success.
- Worked example: a filled-in version of sheet 2 to copy.
Score roles rather than named people unless you are planning individual development. Write each task as something people do, such as “send customer documents securely”, so you can train it and measure it.
A worked example
The template includes an example for a fictional wholesale distributor with 85 staff: a warehouse, a customer service team, a sales team and nine team leaders. The analysis found:
| Role and task | Evidence | Priority | What happens next |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warehouse: lift and move stock safely | 2 back injuries and 5 near misses last year | Must do | Practical session on site |
| Warehouse: pick the right stock | 4% of orders picked wrongly, mostly on two aisles with unclear labels | Not a training fix | Relabel the two aisles, then measure again |
| Customer service: send documents and emails securely | 2 emails sent to the wrong customer; quiz average 55% | Must do | Short e-learning module on the company’s own procedure, with an assessment |
| Customer service: use the new CRM | New system goes live in March | 6 | E-learning walkthroughs before go-live |
| Team leaders: hold performance conversations | Only 40% of appraisals completed | 4 | Workshop with practice conversations |
| Sales: explain the new product range | Range launches in May | 1 | Short e-learning per product line |
| All staff: fire evacuation procedure | Last two drills completed on time | No gap | Keep the annual refresher |
The analysis puts the two legal priorities first, gives the CRM training a deadline tied to go-live and saves the cost of a picking course that would not have reduced errors.
Choosing the training method
- Practical training for physical skills such as manual handling or operating equipment. E-learning can support it with the theory and a refresher, but cannot replace hands-on practice. Our guide to online health and safety training sets out what the HSE expects to stay practical.
- Ready-made e-learning where the knowledge is the same for everyone, such as display screen equipment, data protection basics or cyber security awareness.
- Custom e-learning where the content is your own: procedures, systems, products and the examples your staff meet every day.
- Workshops and coaching for conversations and judgement, such as performance reviews or handling complaints.
Whatever the method, keep a record of who completed what and when. Our guide to mandatory training for employees in the UK covers which training the law requires and the records that stand up.
How Capytech helps
Once you know your priorities, we can turn them into training. FastTrack builds custom e-learning from your own documents in days, with updates turned round in 48 hours, which suits procedures and systems that change. The Capytech course library has around 9,000 ready-made courses for common topics.
The Capytech LMS keeps your analysis live after the spreadsheet is filed. Its compliance matrix maps each job role to the training it needs and shows who is valid, due or overdue, and certificates carry renewal dates, so refreshers happen on time.
Frequently asked questions
Decide what the organisation needs, map roles and score the gaps, check whether each gap is really a training problem, set priorities, then plan, deliver and check the training worked. The HSE uses a similar five-step approach in its guide to health and safety training.
Organisation (the goals, changes and risks that need people to do something new), role or team (the tasks each role must perform and how well they are done now) and individual (one person’s development needs). Most organisations start at organisation and role level, and use appraisals for individual needs.
At least once a year, ideally alongside business planning, and again whenever something significant changes, such as a new system, a new law, a restructure or a serious incident. Keep it open and update it as things change.
The role and task, the level needed and the current level, the gap, the evidence, the cause, whether the law requires the training, the risk if the gap is not closed, a priority, and then the method, owner, date and success measure for each piece of training.
Yes. Our template is a free Excel download with no form to fill in, and includes a worked example. Health and care organisations can also use the example TNA templates NHS England publishes for the Data Security and Protection Toolkit.
See your own training as e-learning, free
Send us one document and we will turn it into an interactive demo module, so you can judge the quality before you spend anything.