The survey took place in March and conducted interviews with 200 L&D professionals in organisations of at least 1,000+ employees. It shows that attitudes to outsourcing within businesses are not as negative as might be assumed and trends point towards this figure only increasing in future, with a higher percentage of recent adopters of outsourcing (16%) stating that it is ‘enthusiastically embraced’.

Learning and Development (L&D) services are ahead in the outsourcing game. Indeed, close to half (48%) of companies have been outsourcing L&D for over a decade and it is the most likely function of a business to be outsourced, with 82% outsourcing a least part of their training function. By comparison, IT infrastructure is only outsourced by 49% and customer service by 29%.

The results imply that while outsourcing is very much an established and accepted part of L&D, however it is still being used in its traditional, piecemeal fashion.

While large number of businesses using tried and tested approaches in a rapidly changing environment, only around a 20% of businesses are exploring more sophisticated aspects of L&D. This trend could develop into a ‘two tier state’ in L&D provision.

Furthermore, while 56% of those surveyed said that the importance of L&D has increased in the last 12-18 months, cost is seen as the greatest barrier. On average, the increase in L&D spending during the last 18 months was minimal (1%) and the expectation of increase in the 18 months is little higher (1.4%).

This represents a growing dilemma for UK business as the economic environment pushes them to do more but allows them to allocate fewer resources to do so.

Click here to request a complete version of the survey.