Degreed is a learning experience platform (LXP) that companies use to organize, track, and deliver employee learning in one place. Unlike a traditional learning management system (LMS) that mainly hosts internal training courses, Degreed pulls together content from dozens of external providers, internal resources, and informal learning sources so employees can build skills through a single hub. Organizations like Unilever, Boeing, and Cisco have used the platform to connect workforce skill development directly to business goals.
How Degreed Works
At its core, Degreed acts as an aggregator and organizer for learning content. Rather than forcing employees into a fixed course catalog, the platform curates recommendations based on each person’s preferences, existing skills, interests, and learning history. Employees can search for and share courses, articles, videos, podcasts, and other materials from across the web, all without leaving the platform. A browser extension lets users capture and share learning resources from any website they visit.
The platform uses AI-powered search and chat functionality to help users find relevant resources and generate learning pathways. Administrators can build automated workflows, nudges, and messages to keep employees on track without manual follow-up. The overall design prioritizes self-directed, continuous learning rather than top-down course assignments, though organizations can still assign required training when needed.
Skill Tracking and Measurement
Degreed’s skill-tracking system is what separates it from a simple content library. Every employee has a skills profile that can be populated in several ways: self-identification, resume parsing, or organizational assignment based on job roles and skill standards. The platform maintains a skill taxonomy specific to each organization, mapping relationships between skills, content, people, and job experiences.
Skills are measured through multiple rating types. Employees can rate their own proficiency, and peers and managers can add their own ratings. A “Skill Signals” metric tracks all Degreed-recorded activity related to a specific skill, giving a more holistic view than a single test score. Learning professionals within the organization can also endorse and validate specific skills on an employee’s profile.
Organizations can designate certain skills as priorities for specific roles or mark them as “critical” through skill standards. When new prioritized skills are assigned to an employee, Degreed prompts them to complete a self-rating, which helps the company identify gaps between where employees are and where they need to be. This data feeds into workforce planning, letting leaders see skill gaps across teams and departments rather than just tracking course completion rates.
Content Integrations
One of Degreed’s biggest selling points is the breadth of its integrations. The platform connects with well-known learning providers including Coursera, edX, LinkedIn Learning, DataCamp, Blinkist, Babbel, Cybrary, and FutureLearn, among many others. It also integrates with enterprise software categories beyond content: human capital management (HCM) systems, learning management systems like Cornerstone OnDemand and Docebo, mentoring and coaching platforms like BetterUp, talent marketplaces like Eightfold and Fuel50, and credentialing platforms like Credly.
This means a company doesn’t have to abandon its existing LMS to use Degreed. The two can run side by side, with Degreed serving as the employee-facing discovery layer while the LMS handles compliance training, certifications, and other structured requirements. The combined setup gives organizations both the flexibility of an LXP and the administrative controls of an LMS.
LXP vs. LMS: Why It Matters
A traditional LMS is built around assigned courses, tracking completion, and maintaining compliance records. It works well for mandatory training like workplace safety or regulatory certifications. But it tends to be rigid, with content organized by the training department rather than the learner.
An LXP like Degreed takes a different approach. It’s designed to be adaptable, letting organizations quickly curate or create content that responds to changing industry trends or emerging skill gaps. The experience is more personalized, pulling in informal learning (an article someone read, a conference they attended, a project they completed) alongside formal courses. For employees, the difference is noticeable: instead of logging into a system only when told to complete a course, they have a reason to return regularly because the platform surfaces content relevant to their career interests and current projects.
Capability Academies and Program Management
Degreed has expanded beyond pure content aggregation in recent years. After acquiring a company called LearnIn, the platform added what it calls a Talent Academy Platform. This feature lets organizations build structured learning programs that go beyond individual courses. Think of it as assembling a full curriculum around a business-critical capability, like data analytics or supply chain management, that includes courses from multiple providers, cohort-based learning, mentoring, and hands-on experiences.
The Talent Academy Platform also handles the administrative side of learning investments, including tuition reimbursement and e-commerce for third-party programs. For companies that sponsor employees to take external certifications or university courses, this consolidates what used to be a patchwork of spreadsheets and manual approvals into a single workflow.
Who Uses Degreed
Degreed is designed for mid-size to large enterprises. The platform is most valuable to organizations with thousands of employees across multiple roles and locations, where tracking skills at scale becomes a real operational challenge. Companies typically buy Degreed to solve one or more of these problems: employees can’t find relevant learning resources, leadership has no visibility into workforce skills, or the organization needs to reskill large groups of people quickly in response to business changes.
Within a company, different groups interact with the platform in different ways. Employees use it as a personalized learning hub. Managers use skill data to understand team strengths and gaps. L&D (learning and development) teams use it to curate content, build pathways, and measure the impact of training investments. HR and talent teams use the skill data to inform hiring, internal mobility, and succession planning.
Digital Badges and Recognition
Degreed lets employees earn and display digital badges as recognition of completed learning, demonstrated competencies, or acquired skills. These badges appear on employee profiles and can signal readiness for new roles or responsibilities. Organizations can use badges alongside skill ratings and activity data to build a more complete picture of what each employee is capable of, moving beyond the traditional resume-and-job-title approach to understanding talent.
Profiles within the platform serve as living skill portfolios. Instead of a static list of past training, an employee’s profile reflects their ongoing learning activity, validated skills, and areas of focus, giving managers and talent teams a real-time view of workforce capabilities.