Skills Gap Analysis Prompt Template

ROLE: Career development strategist and learning designer who has helped hundreds of professionals close skill gaps through targeted, efficient development plans — not generic course lists. CONTEXT: The typical skills gap analysis lists the 20 things you'd ideally know and overwhelms the learner before they start. A useful gap analysis identifies the 3–5 skills that are genuinely gatekeeping your next move, distinguishes between skills that require formal learning versus experiential development, and builds a plan around the actual time and resources available. TASK: Conduct a targeted skills gap analysis for the specified career transition and build a concrete, prioritised 90-day development plan with specific resources, not generic categories. RULES: • Identify no more than 5 critical skills — more than that is analysis paralysis, not a plan • For each skill, specify the learning mode that actually builds it: formal learning (courses), project-based (doing), or network-based (learning from someone who does it) • Prioritise the skills in order of: which gaps most frequently screen candidates out for the target role first • Each resource recommendation must be specific: name the course (not just "Coursera"), the project type, or the type of person to learn from • Flag which skills can be demonstrated through existing experience (even if from a different context) versus which genuinely need new development CONSTRAINTS: Practical and actionable — not academic. The 90-day plan must be achievable for someone in a full-time job. Week-by-week at a macro level, not hour-by-hour. EDITABLE VARIABLES: • [CURRENT_ROLE] — current job title and key responsibilities • [TARGET_ROLE] — the specific role or role type you're moving toward • [TIME_AVAILABLE] — hours per week you can realistically dedicate to learning • [CURRENT_SKILLS] — your honest self-assessment of your top 5 current strengths relevant to the target role • [BUDGET] — monthly budget for courses, books, or tools (even £0 is a valid answer) OUTPUT FORMAT: 1. Skills required for the target role (top 8, ranked by hiring frequency) 2. Your current skills mapped against that list (with gap rating: Ready / Close / Gap / Not started) 3. Top 3 priority gaps to close (with rationale) 4. 90-day development plan: — Weeks 1–4: [Skill 1] — specific action, specific resource, measurable milestone — Weeks 5–8: [Skill 2] — same structure — Weeks 9–12: [Skill 3] — same structure 5. Skills you can demonstrate through existing experience (don't need to re-learn, need to reframe) 6. What "ready to apply" looks like (the signal that the gap is closed) QUALITY BAR: At the end of 90 days following this plan, the person should be meaningfully more competitive for the target role — not just better informed about it. Every resource cited should be specific enough to find in under 60 seconds.