diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 987de7212..a60c91aaa 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -114,3 +114,11 @@ To quickly fix typos, use
 ```bash
 make misspell-correction
 ```
+
+## Updating the referenced specification version
+
+1. Open the `./internal/tools/update_specification_version.sh` script.
+2. Modify the `PREVIOUS_SPECIFICATION_VERSION` to be the same value as `LATEST_SPECIFICATION_VERSION`
+3. Modify `LATEST_SPECIFICATION_VERSION` to the latest specification tag, e.g. `1.21`
+4. Run the script from the root directory, e.g. `semantic-conventions$ ./internal/tools/update_specification_version.sh`.
+5. Add all modified files to the change submit and submit a PR.
diff --git a/internal/tools/update_specification_version.sh b/internal/tools/update_specification_version.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..ccc195c6c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/tools/update_specification_version.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# Example usage:
+#
+# ./internal/tools/update_specification_version.sh
+
+
+# Set this to the version number you want to CHANGE in URLs in the repository.
+PREVIOUS_SPECIFICATION_VERSION="main"
+# Set this to the version number you want to KEEP in URLs in the repository.
+LATEST_SPECIFICATION_VERSION="1.20.0"
+# The specific pattern we look for when replacing URLs
+SPECIFICATION_URL_PREFIX="https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/tree/"
+SPECIFICATION_BLOB_URL_PREFIX="https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/"
+
+
+fix_file() {
+  echo Fixing file $1
+  sed -i \
+   -e "s,${SPECIFICATION_URL_PREFIX}${PREVIOUS_SPECIFICATION_VERSION},${SPECIFICATION_URL_PREFIX}${LATEST_SPECIFICATION_VERSION},g" \
+   -e "s,${SPECIFICATION_BLOB_URL_PREFIX}${PREVIOUS_SPECIFICATION_VERSION},${SPECIFICATION_URL_PREFIX}${LATEST_SPECIFICATION_VERSION},g" \
+   "$1"
+}
+
+important_files=("specification" "semantic_conventions" "README.md" "supplementary-guidelines")
+
+# TODO - limit to markdown/yaml files?
+find "${important_files[@]}" -type f -not -path '*/.*' -print0 | while read -d $'\0' file; do
+  fix_file "$file"
+done