How to Choose a User-friendly Compliance Training Platform in the UK

Selecting the optimal compliance policy management tool depends on the size, complexity and regulatory demands of your business, as well as your requirements and objectives, and the capabilities you’re seeking.

It’s also influenced by the maturity of your compliance programme and how much you’re willing to invest. Evaluate vendors like Skillcast and focus on your priorities, be it cost, simplicity, scalability, audit trails, integration or reporting capabilities.

Key takeaways

• A compliance policy management tool is a software platform that helps create, distribute, track, manage and enforce company policies and procedures.
• Policy management solutions streamline the lifecycle of compliance policies, helping reduce risk, improve efficiency and prove adherence to relevant regulations.
• Compliance policy management tools improve consistency and accountability, save time and money, and help protect your reputation.
• Selecting the best compliance policy management tool depends on the size, maturity and regulatory demands of your business, your requirements and objectives, and the capabilities you’re seeking.
• SMEs will likely prioritise budget, simplicity, easy implementation, modularity and strong vendor support.
• Large firms may focus on different areas, including business complexity, integrated risk management, advanced reporting and scalability.
• To ensure you make the right decision, get cross-functional input, define use cases, narrow options to a shortlist, and consult analyst reports.
• Be sure to request demos/free trials, assess TCO, verify vendor viability, plan for change management, and set KPIs to measure success.
• Pitfalls to consider include underestimating human change, vendor lock-in and ignoring integrations.
• As a compliance policy management tool vendor, Skillcast offers a Policy Hub with an array of capabilities, from version control and analytics to integrating with compliance training.

Skillcast is a strong compliance policy management tool choice, because they offer a Policy Hub, dedicated support and CoreCompliance for small businesses.

Skillcast’s Policy Hub is a compliance management tool for small and large businesses that offers valuable features, including version control, employee attestation, custom approval workflows, audit trails, revision history, integration with compliance training, granular analytics and dashboard report access.

By choosing Skillcast’s Policy Hub as your policy management tool, you benefit from streamlined policy tracking and compliance, the ability to create, update and communicate policies, and dedicated support, making compliance easier, whether you’re a small or large business.

Compliance policy software: small vs. large UK businesses

• What are compliance policy management tools?
• Why are compliance policy management tools important?
• Choosing a compliance policy management solution
• Compliance policy software: small vs. big businesses
• Process for selecting a compliance policy management tool
• Choosing a compliance policy management platform: pitfalls
• Comparing compliance policy management tools
• Policy management tool case study: Skillcast and BFML
• How to pick the optimal compliance policy management tool
• Policy management tools: FAQs

In PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC’s) Global Compliance Survey 2025, 64% said compliance technology improves risk visibility and related activities, highlighting the importance of businesses leveraging the solutions available to them, including policy management tools.

Below is a how-to guide for choosing the optimal tool for small and large companies, including a comparison table evaluating Skillcast’s Policy Hub, LogicGate’s Risk Cloud, and more.

What are compliance policy management tools?

Compliance policy management tools are software platforms that help create, distribute, track, manage and enforce the company policies and procedures required to meet legal, regulatory and internal obligations.

They streamline the entire lifecycle of compliance policies, including automating tasks, centralising documentation, monitoring adherence and providing audit trails. As a result, companies can reduce risk, enhance efficiency and prove adherence to relevant rules and standards.

Most compliance policy software, including Skillcast’s, boasts the following features:

• Policy creation and version control
• Policy approval workflow
• Policy distribution and attestation
• Compliance training and education
• Monitoring and auditing
• Risk management and reporting

What are policies and procedures?

Company policies are the rules and principles that guide the business, offering a framework for decision-making, compliance and workplace standards. Procedures are detailed, step-by-step instructions for implementing policies, outlining how to handle specific situations or tasks.

Combined, work policies and procedures aim to cultivate a consistent and fair work environment.

Choosing a compliance policy management solution

We’ve created a how-to guide for selecting the best compliance policy management tool, factoring in the size of your business.

1. What are your requirements and objectives?

As part of this, map out:

• Compliance obligations, including the regulations, standards and risks your organisation needs to manage – for example, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).
  Define your compliance lifecycle: how policies are authored, reviewed, approved, distributed, versioned/updated and retired.
• What does compliance policy management mean to you? For instance, is it storing work policies and tracking ack­nowledgement, or something deeper, such as linking policies to controls, monitoring compliance tasks, automating assessments and connecting to risk management?
• How many:
  • Policies
  • Users need access
  • Business units/jurisdictions

2. What core capabilities should you look out for?

Some compliance policy solution features are universal, regardless of business size. These include:

• User experience
• Scalability
• Centralised policy repository
• Audit trail and accountability
• Workflow automation
• Risk and control management
• Third-party / vendor risk
• Task management
• Reporting and analytics
• Integration capabilities
• Vendor roadmap

Compliance policy software: small vs. big businesses

The above features will likely matter to all companies, but trade-offs and priorities change depending on the size of your business.

Small UK businesses/SMEs

Small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may have limited budgets, so the cost-effectiveness of the policy management tool they choose is crucial. They may also value simplicity over complexity. Other considerations include:

• Modularity: This allows you to start small and scale up
• Easy and quick implementation: Minimal setup and training, intuitive interface
• Robust vendor support and AI assistance: Vital, if you don’t have a dedicated compliance team

Large UK businesses

Bigger companies have different things to focus on, from business complexity to the need for integrated risk management. Alongside that, they keep the following front of mind:

• Advanced reporting
• Enterprise integrations – for example, with human resources systems
• Vendor track record with proven enterprise-level experience
• Formal and strict governance and audit trails
• Reliable scalability

Process for selecting a compliance policy management tool

To ensure you make the right decision, whatever the size of your business, it’s a good idea to seek cross-functional input by involving compliance, legal, IT, risk and operations teams. Define use cases and scenarios and map out typical workflows (policy creation, distribution, audit, etc.).

Additionally, narrow potential policy management software vendors down to a shortlist (three to five), based on your criteria, and use analyst reports from firms like Gartner or Forrester to help evaluate options. From there:

• Request demos/free trials and Sandbox
• Assess total cost of ownership (TCO)
• Verify vendor viability
• Plan for change management
• Set key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success

Choosing a compliance policy management platform: pitfalls

There are several risks and aspects to watch out for when picking a compliance policy management tool.

1. Going overboard: Opting for more heavyweight software than you need, wasting budget and slowing adoption down.
2. Underestimating human change: Rolling out a policy management tool means employees need to adapt their behaviour.
3. Vendor lock-in: Avoid an inflexible solution that doesn't allow you to move/export data.
4. Ignoring integrations: A siloed compliance policy management tool that can’t talk to risk or audit modules may limit value.
5. Maintenance requirements: Without discipline (policy reviews, keeping risk registers up-to-date, etc), even the most robust tools are ineffective.

Comparing compliance policy management tools

Below, we’ve collated a table comparing several compliance policy software vendors: Skillcast, LogicGate, IBM and Convercent.

Policy management tool case study: Skillcast and BFML

Historically, Bespoke Facilities Management Limited (BFML) used a spreadsheet to distribute over 300 documents to employees, creating a big administrative burden and room for error. Enter Skillcast's Policy Hub and a dedicated customer success manager, enabling BFML to save around 390 working hours a year (about one day a week) in maintaining and managing documents.

"Skillcast is very quick and simple to set up. Unlike other vendors, they enable you to set the platform up the way you want it. It's not just an out-of-the-box product, but customisable to your company's needs. They also have a great support team that’s always reachable.

The Skillcast platform has provided us with one access point for employees, and they’ve given us peace of mind that all policies and e-learning are assigned to the right users when they start, allowing us to easily report on what training and policies are outstanding for employee and company compliance."

How to pick the optimal compliance policy management tool

Choosing the best compliance policy management tool for your organisation requires a needs assessment, research and testing. Don’t just focus on features; instead, align with your organisational maturity, risk appetite and compliance culture.

Generally, small businesses prioritise ease of use and cost-effectiveness, while large ones require greater scalability, customisation and advanced integration capabilities. We can help with both: try a free demo or trial, where you’ll have access to Skillcast’s libraries and compliance platform.

For more information about the services we offer, contact our team directly.

Policy management tools: FAQs

Who uses compliance policy management software?

Typically, compliance officers, risk managers, HR, legal teams, IT security and internal auditors.

Are compliance policy management tools secure?

Yes, because reputable vendors like Skillcast use encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based access controls, and they comply with standards like SOC 2 or ISO 27001.

How does policy management software support regulatory compliance?

It maps policies to regulatory standards, offers compliance reporting, provides audit trails, and ensures employees acknowledge required policies (attestation).

Looking for more compliance insights?

Our Essentials Library contains e-learning content designed to help organisations meet fundamental compliance requirements. If you’re looking for focused training, our training packages offer a complete solution for your compliance programme.

Our e-learning courses are designed to engage employees with our microlearning library, which was created to support knowledge retention.

Our Compliance Portal also features a range of tools to digitise and automate your compliance learning. These include our:

• Learning Management System (LMS)
• Policy Hub
• Compliance Register
• Compliance Surveys
• Compliance Declarations
• AI Digital Assistant (Aida)

If you’d like to access leading insights and compliance tips, you can browse our free resources by topic to find guides, modules, compliance bites and more.

References and further reading

• The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Change management factsheet
• European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)
• legislation.gov.uk, SSearch Legislation Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council
• McKinsey, Governance, risk, and compliance: A new lens on best practices
• PWC, Global Compliance Survey 2025
• TheCityUK, Annual cost of regulatory compliance to UK financial services sector exceeds £33.9bn, press release