What Britain’s Learning Report from Udemy

September 23, 2015 By Udemy Team

New adult learning report reveals online tech revolution

The What Britain’s Learning Report from Udemy, the global online education marketplace, reveals that 390,000 UK students taking 1.3 million courses are turning to online learning to keep up with the pace of change in working life and manage their wellbeing. This is the first report of its kind on online learning in the UK.

Top report findings include:

There have been more than 660,000 enrolments in Udemy’s technical courses to learn to programme, build apps and games, or design websites in the UK to date – technical courses make up 48% of all enrolments in the UK
The top 20 work-related courses are dominated by the tech industry as British people take steps to stay relevant in their careers
A quarter of Udemy users identify themselves as entrepreneurs who have started or want to start a business
One thousand of Udemy’s 18,000 instructors are based in the UK and last year the top 20 earned a combined income of £2.6 million
The report identifies a focus on mindfulness as 58% of the most popular courses that are not career related are geared towards positive thinking and wellbeing

Jobs today are changing faster than ever – too fast for the traditional education system to keep up and adequately train the next workforce. The majority of Udemy courses taken (75%) are work related as people look to move their careers forward, either in traditional workplaces or by building their own businesses. At the same time, people are building soft skills by taking Udemy courses on topics such as interpersonal communication and time management.

The report identifies the changing face of learning. Twelve of the top 20 most popular courses would not have been heard of a decade ago. As technology moves at such a fast pace, skills such as web and app development are now paramount to British businesses, but not universally taught in traditional education. People need to keep their skills up to date and in order to stay relevant, they have to keep learning long after they leave school.

Outside of the workplace, personal wellbeing and self-improvement are high on Britain’s agenda as learners look to improve their productivity, advance their memory and improve confidence. One in 12 of the courses taken in the UK are on self-improvement or life skills including positive thinking, mindfulness and confidence-building techniques.

Dennis Yang, Udemy CEO, said: “The world of work is changing faster than ever, resulting in constant shifts in what people need to know. People are moving online to equip themselves for today’s careers as traditional education and training can no longer keep up. In the last 12 months, we have seen a 140% increase in the number of online courses being taken in the UK as more and more people look to shape their future. Students can access the courses they need on the go from any device, to immediately learn what they need. Whether people are taking job-specific courses or courses geared toward broader self-improvement, we see students continuing to seek skills to help them chart their own career paths.”

The report reveals, by age, gender and UK region, significant trends and social insights when it comes to work and non-work-related learning, from the weird and wonderful, to the top regional learning hotspots and a new age of the tech entrepreneur. Brought up on stories of tech billionaires and rapid growth in technology, people of all ages are embracing online learning to improve both their work and personal lives.

Notes to editor:

The top 10 most popular courses across all topics in the UK are:

For further information contact or a copy of the report:
Steph Reynolds or Mary Worrall at CubanEight PR
[email protected] 01869 238089

About Udemy

Udemy is an online education marketplace with over 8 million students. Our course content and instructor community are constantly growing, with more than 32,000 courses taught by 18,000 instructors. Students have the ability to learn as they go and succeed on their own terms, while instructors have a way to share their knowledge with the world.
For companies, Udemy offers a subscription to our best business courses as well as an easy-to-use platform to create proprietary courses. Founded in 2010, Udemy is privately owned and funded by the Stripes Group, Norwest Venture Partners, Insight Venture Partners, Lightbank, MHS Capital, and Learn Capital, among others. Udemy is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Dublin, Ireland, and Ankara, Turkey.