ELARA AI Skills Framework

Most organisations can name the AI tools they have bought. Far fewer can say what AI capability their people need, role by role, or how far they are from it.

Job titles do not answer that question, and neither do course completions. Without a shared definition of what good looks like, hiring, training and governance each work from a different picture.

ELARA answers one question: what AI capability does each role need, at what level, and where are the gaps?

Forty-four skills in eight categories. ELARA covers the whole workforce, not only the specialists: AI Foundation & Digital Literacy for every employee; AI Engineering & Development and Technical Specialist AI Skills for technical practitioners; AI Application, Automation & Design for product and process teams; AI Governance, Risk & Compliance for governance and risk specialists; AI Strategy & Business Leadership for senior leaders; AI Transformation & Capability Development for those who lead change; and Domain & Sector Specialist AI Skills for nine domains and sectors, from healthcare and financial services to the public sector.

Seven levels, aligned to SFIA 9. Every skill uses the seven levels of responsibility of SFIA 9, the established skills framework for the digital world. Each skill is defined only at the levels where it is meaningful: AI Fundamentals & Concepts runs from Level 1 to Level 3, AI Leadership & Strategic Vision from Level 5 to Level 7. An alignment note on every skill shows how it relates to existing SFIA 9 skills, so the framework extends established competency practice rather than replacing it.

A foundation for everyone. Seven foundation skills set the baseline for every employee: what AI is, the data it depends on, responsible use, instructing AI, working productively with it, its wider impact, and the judgement to know when and how to rely on it. Every skill beyond the foundation builds on the first three.

Written for how AI is used now. The skill descriptions cover generative and agentic AI, reasoning models, AI security and red-teaming, and the obligations that follow from the EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001 and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.

Built to be used, not only read. An interdependency map shows which skills are prerequisites for which. Six career pathway profiles, from AI engineer to Chief AI Officer, show the skills and levels typical at each career stage. A defined escalation pathway connects an individual's ethical concern to the specialist governance functions that can act on it.

Kept current. A full review each year, interim updates when regulation or standards change materially, and a watch-list of emerging domains that are not yet stable enough to define as skills.

What an assessment gives you. Individual and team skill profiles set against the roles you need, a gap analysis, and prioritised development plans.

Where to start. Read one skill in full, see how the framework is built, or request a free executive briefing to discuss how it would apply to your organisation.