As part of our ongoing efforts to monitor the market for adult lifelong learning, Leading Learning, in conjunction with its parent company, Tagoras, annually surveys learning businesses about their plans for the year ahead.
What’s a Learning Business?
“Learning business” is our preferred term for any entity that sells continuing education, professional development, and/or other types of lifelong learning experiences to adult learners.
Learning businesses include trade and professional associations; commercial training firms; and professional, continuing, and online (PCO) units at academic institutions.
The Survey
We’ve run an annual online survey of learning businesses for many years, but, in 2024, we tore it down and rebuilt it. We discuss more about the process and what changed in episode 440 of the Leading Learning Podcast, “No Time Like Now for Strategy.”
We conducted the survey in the fourth quarter of 2024, and we received qualifying responses from 120 learning businesses. The majority of responses (53.3 percent) came from trade and professional associations.
Data Points
The survey questions cover a range of areas of interest and concern for learning businesses:
- Top strategic goals
- Drivers behind strategic goals
- Trends and issues impacting strategy formulation and execution
- Challenges with maintaining or growing enrollments and registrations
- Barriers to innovation in education offerings, and top areas of investment for the year ahead
We discuss all the above points and more in episode 443 of the Leading Learning Podcast, “Benchmarking for Learning Businesses.”
Takeaways
In analyzing the survey data and reflecting on our own experience working with and observing learning businesses, we landed on four key takeaways: AIding strategy, revamping revenue, employing alignment, and trusting speed. All four ideas tie to a common theme of resourcefulness.
For more on those four takeaways and the overarching theme of resourcefulness, check out episode 444 of the Leading Learning Podcast, “A Year for Resourcefulness.”
An Infographic
The infographic that follows succinctly summarizes three key data points from the survey: the top strategic goals for learning businesses in 2025, the top trends and issues impacting their strategy, and their top areas of investment in the year ahead.
![The 2025 Learning Business Landscape
At the end of 2024, Tagoras and Leading Learning surveyed learning businesses—including trade and professional associations, training companies, and PCO units—about their focus for 2025. The data below comes from 120 qualifying responses.
Top 3 Strategic Goals
[horizontal bar chart showing top 3 goals]
Increasing revenue (30.0%), growing enrollments and/or registrations (28.3%) and strengthening alignment with workforce needs (16.7%) are the top three strategic goals for 2025. The other 4 predefined options and the “something else” option were each selected by under 10% of respondents.
Top 3 Trends Impacting Strategy
We asked how important 8 trends and issues are to strategy in 2025. We used a 5-point scale ranging from not important (1) to critical (5).
[progress bar showing 3.93/5 for workforce and employer needs, 3.62/5 for learner preferences for flexibility, and 3.36 for more personalized learning experiences]
Top 3 Areas of Investment
[vertical bar chart showing 58.6% for enhancing marketing and outreach efforts, 45.7% for increasing learner engagement, and 31.0% for increasing efforts to partner with other organizations]
The survey offered 10 predefined choices and a “something else” option and asked respondents to pick up to 3. Over half indicated they’ll be increasing investment in marketing and outreach efforts in 2025.
Learn more about the survey data and key takeaways at www.leadinglearning.com/2025landscape.](https://www.leadinglearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2025-Learning-Business-Landscape-2025.png)
Culture, Mindset, and Money with Erin Pressley
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