The aim of this thesis was to enlarge understanding competence as a phenomenon. The motive for this was the thesis client company’s aspiration to interpret the target market and its clients’ personnel development requirements more efficiently. The client company for this thesis was Trinno Oy which provides innovative digitalized training solutions.

The research was divided between a literature review as a theoretical framework and a theme interview study as a practical part. A qualitative research method was applied to analyze and understand competence as a phenomenon. The focal research questions were what competence is and how the need evolves, how the level of need and the level of competence are quantified, how competence is managed, what the special characters set by the industrial and construction industry environment are.

The research discovered that the level of competence is verifiable both in a theoretical perspective and in practice in the industrial environment. In the theoretical perspective competence could be divided into practical, formal and metacognitive knowledge. Verification of the competence level presumes explicit learning targets and requirements as the verification criteria. In practice competence verification is confirmed by using the certificates or professional skills tests and in the industrial practical environment by evaluating the work performance and the quality of end results intuitively.