Geraldine Gordon
Showing construction employers what their workforce can actually do, and verifying it, so competent people get on site faster.
Project
skout skills hub ltd (Yfor)
URL
Year founded
2018
Business stage
Seed
High-growth sectors
Digital and Technologies
Sector
Digital
Location
Northern Ireland
Funding
Highly Commended Applicant
The problem and opportunity
Construction is shifting from “show me your card” to “prove this person is competent for this work.” Regulators, insurers, manufacturers and clients now demand real-time proof, but competence rules sit in documents, schemes and scattered databases that can’t be queried. Employers check the same evidence manually, over and over, across frameworks and insurance requirements, creating friction, cost and risk. Retrofit and safety failures have cost billions.
The solution and innovation
Competence evidence has long scattered across cards, systems and spreadsheets, checked by hand. yfor turns that unstructured evidence into proof, verified before deployment rather than only at audit. It works with the cards and schemes already in use rather than replacing them, issuing a live competence badge backed by auditable evidence from a defined role-based skills library of 1,000+ skills. Piloted with UK construction employers and already earning revenue.
Market and ambition
Regulation is making competence assurance mandatory across the UK’s 2.75m construction workers, a £66–330m annual market. We have a live platform, a paying all-trade facilities management customer, and a public sector pilot. Within 2-3 years, we aim to verify competence for tens of thousands of workers.
Founder perspective
A Chartered Director and Chartered Surveyor with 30+ years in construction, Geraldine Gordon has seen the sector from site to boardroom. She founded yfor on a hard-won insight: competence rarely fails because of a lack of standards, but because standards are too complex to turn into usable skills pathways.
Women in Innovation Award
Highly commended applicant of the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award 2025/26, receiving tailored business support, and access to specialist training and networks. View all winners and highly commended applicants from the Women in Innovation cohort 2025/2026.