Engineering a High-Performance
Compliance Culture at Skanska UK
THE COMPANY
Skanska is a powerhouse in the global construction and project development sector.
Currently celebrating their 25th year In the UK they manage some of the most critical infrastructure projects, from high-speed rail to defence installations. In an industry where safety and compliance are non-negotiable, Skanska needed a digital learning infrastructure that could match their scale and ambition. Partnering with Cortexa, they replaced fragmented legacy systems with a cutting-edge Totara Learning Experience Platform (LXP) to drive organisational capability and operational excellence.
Before the “Learning Hub” was born, Skanska UK’s L&D landscape was a complex web of manual processes that posed significant operational risks:
- The “Data Silo” Risk: Compliance and training data were scattered across iTrent, legacy LMS platforms, and hundreds of project-level spreadsheets, making a single “source of truth” impossible.
- Invisible Progress: Line managers lacked the real-time visibility required to verify if their teams were site-ready, leading to administrative bottlenecks.
- Regulatory Complexity: With the introduction of the Building Safety Act 2022 and Construction (Design & Management) Regulations 2015, the legal burden to prove competency for specific “Duty Holders” became a high-stakes challenge that locally developed apps and spreadsheets could no longer sustain.
- Engagement Gaps: The lack of a centralised, social learning space meant that valuable peer-to-peer knowledge was being lost.
THE SOLUTION: A Future-Proof Digital Ecosystem
Cortexa collaborated with Skanska UK to architect a phased, high-impact rollout of their Learning Hub. This wasn’t just a software install; it was a strategic overhaul of how talent is nurtured and governed.
- A Brand-Immersive Experience: An intuitive, role-based UX designed to mirror Skanska’s high-performance brand, ensuring immediate user adoption.
- Precision “Duties Management”: Cortexa developed a bespoke system to manage the 50+ critical duty holders required for major projects, from Fire Wardens to BSA Accountable Persons. This allows project leads to search and verify qualified personnel in seconds.
- Automated Credentialing: A centralised vault for academic certificates, vocational accreditations, and professional memberships, featuring automated expiry alerts to eliminate compliance lapses.
- Scalable Competency Frameworks: Implementation of unlimited, multi-layered competency frameworks that allow Skanska to map proficiency levels against long-term business goals.
- Inclusion by Design: Integrated accessibility widgets (dyslexia fonts, contrast controls) ensured the platform was usable for every worker, from the head office to the construction site.
THE RESULT: Setting a New Industry Gold Standard
The partnership with Cortexa has delivered measurable impact, moving Skanska from “reactive tracking” to “proactive talent management”:
- 100% Visibility: Total consolidation of learning routes into one mobile-responsive hub, providing leadership with real-time compliance dashboards.
- Operational Velocity: The Duties Management module now houses 7,000+ validated records, drastically reducing the time required to mobilise teams for new projects.
- Future-Ready Foundations: The platform is now the engine behind Skanska UK’s 2027Strategic Business Plan, facilitating complex onboarding and leadership pipelines that were previously impossible to manage at scale.
STATS: Key additional statistics, from April 2025 to April 2026.[
- Site Access: A total of 3,775 period to date.
- Available Resources: 226 including micro learning courses and TED Talks with 90% of those already used with 4,637 views in total.
- Future-Ready Foundations: The platform is now the engine behind Skanska UK’s 2027Strategic Business Plan, facilitating complex onboarding and leadership pipelines that were previously impossible to manage at scale.
The Future: Driving Strategic Growth
Having mastered the “Compliance Foundation,” Skanska and Cortexa are now evolving the platform into a competitive differentiator for 2026 and beyond:
- Hyper-Personalised Onboarding: Tailored paths for UK, Project, and Role-specific integration.
- Gamified Learning: Using engagement data and reporting to drive a culture of continuous self-improvement.
- Leadership Pipelines: Mapping competency achievement paths to identify and fast-track the next generation of Skanska leaders.
“This platform doesn’t just track training; it builds the capability we need to deliver the UK’s most complex projects safely and efficiently.”
“Has raised the bar on how systems should be implemented in Skanska UK.”
BMF
Viessmann
Scottish Prison Service