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Henley Skills

You're not just building subject knowledge at Henley; you're building nine skills that employers consistently say matter as much as your degree, and sometimes more.

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What are the Henley Skills?

What are the Henley Skills?

These are nine skills, grouped under three leadership lenses, that employers worldwide say matter most for graduate success. They're based on the World Economic Forum's Putting Skills First (2023) skills framework and then adapted by Henley.

These are based on what employers across industries and countries say they look for in applicants. You will build these throughout your degree and are already woven into your modules, presentations, group projects and reflective tasks.

These nine skills sit under three leadership lenses:

Ready to find out where you stand? Head to the Reflect and Evidence Your Skills section of this page and start building your own evidence bank, before you need it for an application.

Leading Self

We understand the value we bring

Before you can lead others or drive change, you need a working understanding of who you are, how you learn, and how you respond under pressure. These three skills give you the internal toolkit to keep developing long after you leave Henley.

Communication and negotiation

Motivation and self-awareness

What it is

Knowing your own values, what motivates you, and how you actually come across to other people.

Why it matters to you

This is the skill behind almost every "tell me about yourself" question you'll ever be asked. The better you understand your own strengths and triggers now, the better decisions you'll make about roles, managers and your career long after you graduate.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through reflective logs, self-assessment exercises, and recorded reflective tasks across your modules.

How this shows up at interview

"Tell me about yourself." Could you answer this with a real example, not a rehearsed line?

Teamworking

Curiosity and lifelong learning

What it is

Your appetite for the new: trying something unfamiliar, asking the next question, treating challenge as interesting rather than threatening.

Why it matters to you

Whatever you learn now will only get you so far. The graduates who thrive are the ones who keep learning after graduation. Curiosity is also what gets you noticed early in a job.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through applied projects, short experiments, and tasks that ask you to explore before you're handed the answer.

How this shows up at interview

Can you describe a time you taught yourself something nobody asked you to learn?

Empathy and active listening

Resilience and Agility

What it is

Your ability to absorb pressure, setbacks and criticism, and to adapt when circumstances change.

Why it matters to you

Things will not go to plan in your career, repeatedly and without warning. What separates graduates who progress from those who stall isn't the absence of setbacks, it's how fast and how well they recover.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through open-ended tasks, group projects, and assignments with no single right answer.

How this shows up at interview

"Tell me about a time things didn't go to plan." Do you have a real, specific story ready?

Leading (with) others

We empower others to drive performance

Almost no graduate role is performed alone. These three skills are what let you work productively across difference, and turn a group of individuals into a team capable of delivering real results.

Communication and negotiation

Communication and negotiation

What it is

Getting an idea out of your head and into someone else's clearly enough that they act on it, and finding common ground when interests differ.

Why it matters to you

Brilliant ideas die in badly delivered pitches every day. This is one of the few skills an interviewer can judge in the room, in real time, so practising it pays off fast.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through presentations, role-plays, and live negotiation exercises.

How this shows up at interview

Could you describe a time you negotiated a better outcome for yourself or your team?

Teamworking

Teamworking

What it is

Working productively with people who think and work differently from you.

Why it matters to you

You won't get to choose your colleagues. The graduates who progress fastest aren't always the most individually talented, they're the ones other people want to work with again.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through group assignments, team projects, and collaborative tasks under time pressure.

How this shows up at interview

"Tell me about a time you helped a team work better together."

Empathy and active listening

Empathy and Active Listening

What it is

Paying real attention to what someone is saying, including what they're not saying directly, and using that to build trust.

Why it matters to you

Clients, managers and colleagues will tell you what they need if you listen carefully enough, often before they say it outright. This skill costs nothing to practise and pays off everywhere.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through debates, role-plays, and team tasks that require equal participation.

How this shows up at interview

"Describe a time you understood what someone needed before they said it directly."

Leading with impact

We are agents of organisational and societal change

This is where your personal and interpersonal skills get put to work on real problems. These three skills help you interrogate evidence, use technology responsibly, and weigh the wider ethical and environmental consequences of business decisions.

Communication and negotiation

Analytical and creative thinking

What it is

Breaking a complex problem into its parts, and using imagination to find genuinely new solutions, not just the obvious ones.

Why it matters to you

As routine analysis becomes increasingly automated, your value lies more and more in the judgement calls and creative leaps that come after the data has been processed.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through case studies, multidisciplinary projects, and open-ended research tasks.

How this shows up at interview

Walk me through how you structured your thinking on a complex assignment.

Teamworking

AI and Digital Skills

What it is

Knowing which technology, including AI tools, actually fits a task, and being honest about what it can't do.

Why it matters to you

Employers aren't looking for graduates who can simply operate AI tools, most candidates can already do that. They want graduates who know when a tool genuinely helps, when it misleads, and when a human judgement call is still needed.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through tasks that ask you to select, justify and critically evaluate digital and AI tools.

How this shows up at interview

Can you give an honest example of when an AI tool helped you, and when you had to override or correct it?

Empathy and active listening

Ethical and environmental leadership

What it is

Weighing the wider human and environmental consequences of a decision, fairly and transparently.

Why it matters to you

Increasingly, the organisations you want to work for will expect you to have a considered view on fairness and sustainability, not just profitability.

Where you'll meet it at Henley

You'll build this through ethics debates, sustainability-focused projects, and applied case studies.

How this shows up at interview

Tell me about a time you considered the wider impact of a decision, not just the immediate outcome.

Reflect and Evidence Your Skills

Don't wait until an application form forces you to think about this. The habit of noticing and recording your skills, while they're still fresh, is what turns a degree's worth of experience into a bank of real, specific examples you can use in any interview. Use the questions below every time you finish an assignment, presentation, group project or placement.

Your reflection questions

  • Which skill did this involve?
  • Situation: What was the task or context?
  • Action: What did you actually do?
  • Outcome: What happened as a result?
  • Learning: What would you do differently next time?

Reflection exercises can take less than ten minutes. These can show real progression, and this is what makes you memorable to an employer.

Frequently asked questions

They're nine skills, grouped under three leadership lenses, that employers worldwide say matter most for graduate success. They're based on the World Economic Forum's Putting Skills First (2023) skills framework, adapted for Henley. These are based on what employers across industries and countries say they look for in applicants. You're already building these throughout your degree; and these skills genuinely shape graduate careers.

These skills are already woven into your existing modules, presentations, group projects and reflective tasks. You don't need to do extra work. What's useful is pausing regularly to notice which skill you just used and recording it, so you have real examples ready when you need them.

Interviewers rarely ask "are you a good communicator?" They ask for a specific story. For each skill, prepare one clear example structured as Situation, Action, Outcome, Learning. Build this gradually across your degree using the Reflect and Evidence page, so you're never caught without a real answer.