New analysis from the Learning and Work Institute, published on 7 September, found that UK employer investment in training has fallen 29% per employee since 2011.
What training remains has also got shorter, down from 7.8 days per trainee in 2011 to 5.7 days in 2024. Alarmingly, the UK has the highest proportion of training sessions lasting under a day of any comparator country.
For insurance firms, that pattern has just collided with a significant regulatory shift. In December 2025, the FCA published PS25/21, removing the mandatory 15-hour annual CPD requirement for insurance distribution staff.
The FCA has said this is not a relaxation of its competence and training expectations; firms no longer have to log a set number of hours, but they remain responsible for ensuring competence.
James Read, Managing Director at Zing365, believes the two trends together change what learning needs to deliver.
“Insurance professionals can’t always afford to wait for the next scheduled session to learn about something that is already affecting their role. That’s the appeal of just-in-time learning: short, focused resources that let people refresh their knowledge or explore a new area when they spot a need.
“Bite-sized learning has always been sold on convenience and L&W’s research is proof that this training is becoming popular, at exactly the moment the FCA is asking firms to focus on outcomes.. ,But it’s no longer the whole story. The learning has to be targeted as well as short, tied to an actual gap in someone’s role, rather than a general topic they might find useful.”
L&W’s report is careful not to frame shorter as simply better. Read agrees that it’s not an either/or. Without a shift towards longer, more developmental training, he argues that the current pattern risks holding back growth and leaving both people and businesses less able to adapt.
“That’s exactly why we should not treat just-in-time content as a replacement for real development, it’s one part of a bigger picture. Businesses need a full range of training, from multi-day, instructor-led business skills, such as a Broker Sales Academy or an Aspiring Leader programme, through to single-day courses, to e-learning modules and just-in-time content. The poin