---
id: "concept-skill-taxonomy"
type: "concept"
source_timestamps: ["§ Reskilling Is a Change-Management Initiative"]
tags: ["workforce-planning", "supply-and-demand", "hr-infrastructure"]
related: ["concept-skill-adjacencies", "action-develop-skill-taxonomy", "entity-lightcast", "entity-world-economic-forum"]
definition: "A detailed, structured database mapping the specific capabilities and competencies required for each occupation within an organization."
sources: ["reskilling"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-reskilling"
originDay: 10
articleStem: "hbr-edu-34-reskilling-in-age-of-ai"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2023/09/reskilling-in-the-age-of-ai"
sourceTitle: "Reskilling in the Age of AI"
---
# Skill Taxonomy

A **skill taxonomy** is a detailed, structured description of the specific capabilities and competencies required for every occupation in a company. It is the foundational infrastructure for understanding an organization's internal *supply* of skills versus its strategic *demand* for future skills.

Historically, employers built taxonomies from scratch — **SAP once maintained an in-house taxonomy of 7,000 skills** — but modern best practice is to rely on continually updated external providers or industry standards. **HSBC adapted the [[entity-world-economic-forum-d34|World Economic Forum]]'s taxonomy**, and **SAP transitioned to using [[entity-lightcast|Lightcast]]'s database**. A robust taxonomy is critical for mapping which existing skills can transition to which future jobs, but managers often disagree on those mappings — disagreements that reveal deeper strategic misalignments which must be resolved *before* reskilling begins.

This concept anchors the first task of [[framework-reskilling-change-management]] and the recommendation in [[action-develop-skill-taxonomy]]. It is the operational counterpart to [[concept-skill-adjacencies]], which uses the taxonomy to identify transition pathways.