Torch brings together everything your organisation knows about its people — and everything it's never been able to see — into one structured, current, decision-ready picture of talent. And it keeps that picture alive without turning your organisation into a data-entry exercise.
A living skills map
A job title tells you surprisingly little about what someone can actually do. Two people with the same title can have completely different capabilities; two people in different departments can be near-identical matches for the same role. Torch maps your organisation at the level that actually matters: the skills themselves.
Every person in Torch has a structured skills profile — what they can do, at what level of proficiency — declared by the person and validated by their manager, so the picture is both personal and credible. Rolled up, those profiles become an organisational skills map: where capability is concentrated, where it's thin, and how it's trending.
Some of the most valuable capability in any organisation is invisible — built in previous careers, in qualifications nobody asked about, in side projects and interests that never appeared on a CV the company holds. Torch is built to bring that capability into view, so the skills map reflects what your people can actually do, not just what they were hired to do.
A skills audit is a photograph; it starts ageing immediately. Torch stays current for a simpler reason: it's useful. A person's profile is how they find the roles, projects and learning they want, so keeping it up to date pays them back — no chasing, no annual re-audit. The map you consult in six months reflects the organisation as it is in six months.
Some organisations already have a mature role framework. Many don't — or have one that hasn't kept pace with how the business has changed. For those that need it, Torch offers a job architecture module: a structured framework of roles, levels, and the skills each role genuinely requires — consistent across departments, brands, and geographies.
This does two things most organisations have never had. It makes roles comparable — so a move between teams can be assessed on capability, not guesswork about whether titles mean the same thing. And it makes expectations explicit — every employee can see exactly what their role requires, what the next role requires, and precisely what sits between the two.
For HR and reward teams, it's the clean, defensible role framework that levelling, pay, and progression decisions have always needed. For everyone else, it's simply clarity. And because it's a module, it's there when you need it — Torch delivers its value with or without it.
Internal talent discovery
When a role opens, most organisations post it externally within days — not because internal talent doesn't exist, but because there's no reliable way to find it. Torch changes the default.
Search by the skills a role genuinely requires and Torch surfaces matching people across the whole organisation — across teams, departments, and brands — ordered by how closely their skills align with what the role demands. It shows not just close alignments but near-alignments: people one targeted development step away from ready, which is often the smartest hire you can make.
The result is a genuine internal-first hiring process: faster to fill, dramatically cheaper than external recruitment, and a visible signal to your people that careers progress here. And because Torch understands aspiration as well as ability, it can tell the difference between the person who could do the role and the person who could do it and wants to.
Internal matches
Aspiration, not just ability
Capability is only half of a good talent decision. Torch captures the other half: the skills people most enjoy using, what they genuinely want to learn next, their career goals, and their preferences for internal moves — where they'd like to go, when, and why. It can also reflect how each person likes to be supported by their manager, so career conversations start from the right place instead of a blank page.
And because every organisation's questions are different, this layer is configurable. Custom questions can be built into the platform for your organisation, and pulse questions gather the answers you need — so you're never guessing at what your people want from their skills and careers, you're asking them.
The result is matching and planning that reflects the whole person. An internal move works best when capability and ambition point the same way — Torch is built to find exactly that.
Skills gap analysis & workforce planning
Every strategy has a workforce implication. New markets, new products, new technology — each demands capability, and the honest question is whether you have it.
Torch lets you define the skills profile your strategy requires and measure it against the workforce you actually have. The gaps become explicit: which skills, how severe, where in the organisation. That turns three of the hardest conversations in HR into evidence-based ones:
— which gaps justify hiring, which are better closed through development, and which need external support in the interim.
— where development budget produces measurable capability, rather than completion certificates.
— how to redeploy real capability when the organisation changes shape, instead of losing it.
Roles within reach
The employee experience
Employees don't just appear in Torch — they use it, and they get real value from it. Each person sees their own profile: the skills they've built, how those skills connect to real roles and opportunities inside the organisation, and the specific development that opens the next step.
This is where retention is actually won. People rarely leave organisations where they can see a future. Torch makes that future visible, specific, and reachable — and it makes the organisation's investment in development feel personal rather than generic.
Designed around your people
So Torch is designed around a clear set of principles:
Employees have visibility of their own skills profile — the same capability picture the organisation plans around, not a separate version of it.
Torch exists to connect people to roles, projects, and growth. Its purpose is to make capability visible where visibility helps the person — to open doors, not to watch behaviour.
An employee's profile is theirs to build on: skills recognised, options made visible, development made specific.
Torch uses AI to suggest — roles, learning, opportunities — drawn from profiles people build themselves and managers validate. AI doesn't make decisions about people in Torch; the judgement stays human.
Who can see what is governed by the organisation through role-based permissions, handled in line with UK and EU data protection requirements.
Torch captures what people want as well as what they can do — favourite skills, learning goals, and where they'd like to go next — so opportunities reflect the person's direction, not just their history.
We design to these principles because they're also what makes the platform effective: intelligence people trust is intelligence people engage with — and keep accurate.
Fits your existing stack
Your HRIS remains the system of record. Your LMS keeps delivering learning. Torch sits alongside them as the system of intelligence — informing better decisions in both, without asking you to replace anything that already works.
Where Torch is going
The skills foundation Torch is built on doesn't stop at internal mobility. We're extending the platform in two directions:
The same skills rigour Torch applies inside the organisation, applied to hiring from outside it — so external recruitment is assessed against the same job architecture and the same evidence standards as internal moves, and every hire strengthens the skills map from day one.
Contractors and project-based teams are a growing share of how work gets done — and the least visible part of most workforce plans. Torch is building scheduling, AI-driven skills matching, and optimisation for the contingent workforce, so project and contract resourcing is planned with the same intelligence as permanent headcount.
We publish our direction because we build in partnership with our customers — and because a platform's roadmap tells you as much about it as its feature list.
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