EAB Market Insights for the United Kingdom
EAB's Market Insights helps our higher ed partners make decisions regarding individual courses or their academic portfolio.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
EAB Market Insights helps our higher ed partners make decisions regarding individual courses or their academic portfolio. Through our partnership with Lightcast (formerly known as Emsi Burning Glass), we provide universities with real-time labour market data to help administrators understand the need in the job market for professionals with a certain skillset.
We supplement labour market data with HESA enrolment trends, government employment projections, and qualitative analyses of competitor programmes’ design and curricula. Using these data sources, we help universities grow through launching new courses or through optimising existing courses.
Questions we answer:
Project types
To request a project, complete the online Market Insights Research Request Form. The form will ask you to select the project type you are interested in, the region we should focus on when looking at the labour market data, and any peer competitors you are interested in us including in our report.
There are four project types:
Course Feasibility Study
What it is: We’ll assess the market viability for a specific new course. This project always begins with a Market Pulsecheck, which examines workforce demand and, when possible, student demand and the competitive landscape to provide a holistic measure of how well the course should attract students. After receiving the Market Pulsecheck, partners can request additional research into comparable courses, where we address questions around competitor course structures, curricula, and accreditation.
What to do next: If there is evidence for course demand, learn how to avoid common course launch mistakes or how to develop outcomes-focused recruitment messages. If there isn’t strong evidence, we can help surface other potential fields with potential for new course development with a Market Opportunity Scan.
Existing Course Assessment
What it is: We’ll identify opportunities to update an existing course’s curriculum, positioning, and/or recruitment practices by analyzing employer demand in the field and auditing the course website. This project can help partners better position their course with prospective students.
What to do next:Â Understand how to improve discrete aspects of your web page with our Web Presence Optimization Toolkit; or explore how to re-design student-centric credentials to best serve your audience.
Market Opportunity Scan
What it is: We’ll analyze regional employer demand to identify and rank fields with potential for viable new course opportunities. This helps our partners better understand their regional labour market needs and the courses best poised for growth.
What to expect:
- Surfaces high-demand, high-opportunity fields, rather than niche or emerging fields with limited current opportunity
- Focuses on labour market trends for the most important region
What to do next:Â We can expand on the viability of one of the course ideas with a Course Feasibility Study. We can also help examine the best growth opportunities within your current course portfolio with a Portfolio Health Check.
Portfolio Health Check
What it is: We’ll assess how your current academic portfolio aligns to market demand and identify courses with the strongest growth potential. This project is most effective when assessing 12-30 distinct degree courses.
What to expect:
- External perspective on performance potential of course topics, rather than recap of course performance
- Combined analysis of courses with similar outcomes
- Focuses on labour market trends for the most important region
What to do next: Learn how to use the course review process to prioritize programs for investment and address challenged courses with our Revitalizing the Program Portfolio resource. If you’re looking to better understand and improve one course’s potential for growth, our Existing Course Assessment can help.
Want more information?
Watch our video for a deeper explanation of each Market Insights project type you can request.
Next Steps
Once you submit the Market Insights Research Request Form, we’ll send you a kickoff email to finalize project details and the delivery timeline. If you’re unsure which project type best fits your needs, you can request a call with one of our researchers.
Request a Market Insights Project
Our sources and how we do our research
Our research draws on a variety of data sources to answer questions about programs’ potential for enrollment success.
EAB’s partnership with Lightcast+ serves as our primary data source. Lightcast provides real-time labour market intelligence data.
For additional information on EABs sources see our Research Sources and Data Availability Guide.
Frequently asked questions
What kind of courses are the best fit for a Market Insights analysis?
Labour market data is most helpful when analysing demand for courses that lead to a specific job or outcome. While courses with broad outcomes (e.g., humanities, interdisciplinary) provide valuable skills that might apply to a variety of roles, job postings specific to these degrees rarely surface in labour market data.
Not every program relates directly to a career outcome; for example, schools sometimes need a less market-focused approach when considering liberal arts programs. Other fields (e.g., niche and emerging or arts-focused) may simply not have enough labour market data for our analysis to be very helpful. In these instances where labour market data is less helpful, we will often be able to complete a qualitative analysis of similar courses.
While we may not always be able to provide labour market data for these kinds of degrees, we’ll always work with you to determine the best analysis for your courses’ needs.
Labour market data looks at employer demand, but what about student demand?
Where possible, EAB supplements our analysis of labour market data with enrolment data published by HESA. However, as EAB only has access to HESA data that is publicly available on their website, we won’t always have access to data relevant to the topic of interest. EAB can only access data using the CAH3 Level 3 subject coding system (2020-2021) and the JACS 3.0 Principal Subject Codes. For more information on the HESA data available to EAB, see our Research Sources and Data Availability Guide.
How long will it take for EAB's Market Insights to complete my research request?
The time required for each project will depend on the project type being requested, the type of data needed, and the complexity of the analysis. Most projects can be in completed in four to eight weeks. The Market Insights team will provide an expected completion time at the start of each project.
The steps of a Market Insights project are as follows:
- Partner submits project request
- Optional scoping call with EAB research team
- Project kickoff
- Project midpoint, where EAB shares early insights (Course Feasibility Study and Existing Course Assessment only)
- EAB delivers final report (usually within 4-8 weeks of kickoff)
- Optional project debrief
Why does EAB's Market Insights rely on labour market data?
Labor market data shows if there should be motivation for students to enroll. Career outcomes motivate adult students, in particular. Even for young undergraduates, however, students, their families, and school leaders all want to be sure students will graduate to viable careers.