A Competency Model defines the competencies needed to identify, evaluate, and recognize effective performance attached to a job role or occupation, usually in the workplace. Models are often used as a guide to design training and learning activities; evaluate individual and team performance; recognize achievements and issue records of achievement; and identify individual, organization and industry sector needs, career planning, and managing talent.

A Competency Framework provides a standardized technical means (a pattern) for consistently describing specified attributes of the competencies in a competency model. The framework is often used as a template by which many template-conforming Competency Models can be created. This is an important distinction since there may be more than one competency framework in use; for example, 1EdTech's CASE, the University of Washington's ASN, IEEE’s Sharable Competency Definition; and Credential Engine's CTDL-ASN (template used by Credential Engine to populate its Registry with Competency Models).

An example of the relationship between a framework and a model is the structure of entries in an address book (the framework) and an actual set of addresses (the model),

See: Skills Framework | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library (learnworkecosystemlibrary.com)