This guest blog is written by Sam Miles from Skill x Swap.
Sam shares the story behind her dream of creating community learning and how it led her to build a new kind of learning experience, one rooted in the belief that we learn faster, more confidently, and with more joy when it’s another human showing us how they do it.
I’ve spent a lot of time in and around learning throughout my professional career, formal training, onboarding, mentoring, watching people fumble through new roles, and there’s one thing I keep coming back to. People don’t just need content. They need each other.
That’s really the heart behind Skill x Swap, the platform I’ve been building this year. It’s a growing global space where people share what they know, learn what they don’t, and earn credits for helping someone else. One swap funds the next. It’s circular, community-driven learning.
Why peer learning, though?
Here’s what I’ve seen (and I know your readers will recognise this too):
1. We sit on so many hidden skills.
In every team there’s someone who’s brilliant at Excel, or facilitation, or Canva, or stakeholder emails. That skill never makes it into a formal L&D catalogue, but it’s gold.
2. People want to help.
I launched Skill x Swap and, without a single ad, we now have users in 13 countries giving up their time and knowledge to help total strangers learn. That tells me something important, there is a huge appetite for human-first learning.
3. L&D teams can’t do everything.
Let’s be honest, budgets are tight, workforces are hybrid, and teams are more global and cross-cultural than ever. Peer-to-peer is one of the simplest ways to extend L&D without piling everything on one person.
So what is Skill x Swap?
At its simplest:
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You create a profile
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You say what you can teach or share
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You say what you want to learn
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You match with someone or even browse the wider community
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You do the swap
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You earn a credit
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You spend that credit to learn something else
You teach one, you earn one to learn.
We designed it to work for everyone:
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Individuals who just want to learn something useful, accessible, and human, not another 4-hour e-learning they’ll forget.
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Organisations who want to unlock internal skills, get people collaborating across teams and regions, or offer skills-based volunteering as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Our “The Gift of Learning” campaign
Right now we’re running something I’m really excited about.
We’re asking businesses and individuals to sponsor Learning Credits so that people who can’t necessarily pay, nonprofits, community groups, charities, or learners in lower-income countries, can still join in and learn.
We set ourselves a goal to fund 1,000 learning credits before Christmas.
So far we’ve had a handful of amazing humans (like Kim!) step up, and we’ve been donating some in people’s names too to get things moving.
Every credit equals a real person getting to learn something from another human. It’s beautifully that simple.
Why this matters for L&D people
I’ve now met a lot of L&D pros that are asking things like:
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“How do we make learning more social?”
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“How do we move beyond content libraries?”
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“How do we let people teach each other without it becoming chaos?”
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“How do we do all of that globally?”
Skill x Swap is my attempt at that. It gives you:
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A ready-made global community (we’re live across 13 countries already)
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A way for your people to share skills internally and externally
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A way to tell a CSR story (“we sponsored 50 learning credits this quarter”)
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A way to show impact, swaps completed, credits used, skills shared
And because I built it to be super accessible, we give nonprofits and charities 3 months free.
We’re also currently offering 30 days free for businesses so we can learn with you and make it even better as we evolve and keep growing.
What I want people to hear
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Learning doesn’t have to be expensive.
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It doesn’t have to be top-down.
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It doesn’t have to be “course first, human second.”
It can be:
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“Hey, I can show you that.”
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“Cool, I can help you with this.”
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“Let’s swap.”
That’s it. That’s the magic.
If you, your clients or your organisation wants to try Skill x Swap, or if you’d like to sponsor some learning credits as part of your social impact work, you can get in touch with us at skillxswap.co.uk or connect with me on LinkedIn.
