What can I use InsightU for?

InsightU can be used to explore the apprenticeship market in more detail and build a clear evidence base for planning. It helps you review your market position and reach, analyse demand and delivery trends across sectors and geographies, assess competitor activity, identify potential areas for growth, and understand how provision aligns with local skills needs and priorities.

Where should I start?

Start with the section most closely linked to the question you want to answer:

1. Local Insight – review your current market position, share and geographic reach, including how your activity compares with local demand and other providers.
2. Opportunity Analysis – use the analysis tools in this section to explore areas of demand and potential growth across all sectors or selected sectors of interest. Identify new standards or markets where opportunities may exist, review the market positioning of other providers within a given sector or geography, and explore how current provision aligns with sector and occupational demand.
3. Competition Analysis – explore detailed competitor activity and review the apprenticeship offer of other providers in your market or sector. Use this section to understand the local or wider provider landscape, including where individual providers operate, the standards they deliver, their scale of delivery and key quality indicators.
4. Geographic Analysis – explore apprenticeship demand at local, regional and national levels, including demand by sector and standard, popular provision, and the largest providers operating in each area.
5. Subject Analysis – analyse demand and delivery trends by route, standard and apprenticeship level to understand how activity is changing across different areas of provision.
6. LMI and Community Insight – combine apprenticeship data with labour market and community insight to support place-based planning. Use this section to explore local or regional market demand, skills needs, community context, priority sectors, socio-economic data and alignment with wider labour market priorities.

How can InsightU help with curriculum planning?

InsightU provides evidence on apprenticeship demand, delivery patterns, provider activity and sector trends. This can help inform decisions about where provision may need to grow, where there may be gaps in the current offer, and where provision may need to be strengthened, adapted or reviewed as part of future planning.

How can InsightU help with curriculum planning?

InsightU provides evidence on apprenticeship demand, delivery patterns, provider activity, sector trends and local skills needs. This can help inform decisions about where provision may need to grow, where there may be gaps in the current offer, and where existing provision may need to be reviewed, strengthened or developed further.

How can I understand my university’s market position and reach?

Use Local Insight to review your organisation’s current market position, share and geographic reach. This can help you understand where your university is active, how your position is changing, and how your delivery compares with local demand, wider market activity and other providers.

How can I identify growth opportunities?

Use Opportunity Analysis to explore areas of demand and potential growth across all sectors or selected sectors of interest. The section can help you identify new standards or markets where opportunities may exist, assess how current provision aligns with sector and occupational demand, and review the market positioning of other providers within a selected sector or geography.

How can I analyse competitor activity?

Use Competition Analysis to explore detailed competitor activity and review the apprenticeship offer of other providers in your market or sector. This can help you understand the local or wider provider landscape, including where providers operate, the standards they deliver, their scale of activity, quality indicators and how their position is changing over time.

How can I explore trends across different sectors?

Use Subject Analysis to analyse demand and delivery trends by route, standard and apprenticeship level. This can help you understand market size, popular standards, active providers and how activity is changing across different areas of provision.

How can I compare different geographies?

Use Geographic Analysis to explore apprenticeship demand at local, regional and national levels. This can help you review demand by sector and standard, understand the overall profile of provision in different areas, identify popular provision, and see which providers are most active in each geography.

How can InsightU help with local skills needs and priorities?

Use the LMI and Community Insight section to combine apprenticeship data with labour market and community insight. This can support place-based planning by helping you consider how provision aligns with local or regional market demand, skills needs, socio-economic context, community characteristics and priority sectors.

You can also use the Skills Supply vs Demand analysis tool in the Opportunity Analysis section to explore whether apprenticeship provision is keeping pace with demand in occupations of interest.

Can I look at specific apprenticeship standards?

Yes. InsightU includes standards data and analysis, allowing you to explore individual apprenticeship standards in more detail. You can review participation by volume of starts or achievements, including breakdowns by apprenticeship level, age band, geography and provider type. You can also explore achievement rates, provider activity and trends over time.

This can help you understand who is delivering specific standards, how delivery is changing, how quality indicators compare, and where demand or competition may be increasing or reducing. InsightU also includes information such as maximum funding value, helping to indicate the potential value of starts linked to particular standards.

This level of detail can support more focused curriculum review, help identify potential growth opportunities, and inform decisions about whether to develop, strengthen or review provision in specific apprenticeship standards.

Can I use InsightU to support strategic planning?

Yes. InsightU is designed to provide a clear evidence base for strategy, planning and delivery decisions. It can support discussions about market position, curriculum development, growth opportunities, competitor activity, local skills alignment and future apprenticeship priorities.

How often is the data updated?

InsightU will be updated four times a year, following each quarterly ILR data release (typically in December, February, April, and August). This helps ensure users can review apprenticeship demand, delivery trends and provider activity using the latest available data within the platform.

How are user licenses managed?

Each organisation will be assigned a set number of individual user licenses depending on its subscription. If your organisation requires additional user licenses, please contact RCU to discuss your requirements.

Who should use InsightU within my university?

InsightU may be useful for colleagues involved in apprenticeship strategy, curriculum planning, business planning, market analysis, portfolio review, quality improvement, senior leadership and wider skills planning.

How does InsightU compare to HERA?

HERA provides valuable national apprenticeship insight and benchmarking for UVAC members, helping universities understand wider trends in higher and degree apprenticeship delivery.

InsightU complements HERA by focusing more directly on local market analysis, provider competition, apprenticeship demand and growth opportunities around individual universities. It allows users to explore market activity in greater detail, including provision by geography, sector, standard, provider type and apprenticeship level.

InsightU is designed to help universities understand their own market position and reach, analyse competitor activity, explore potential new markets, and identify growth opportunities. Alongside insight into sector trends and local skills alignment, this provides a stronger evidence base for planning, curriculum development and future apprenticeship strategy.

How do I use filters in InsightU?

InsightU includes a range of filters to help you refine the analysis and focus on the markets, sectors or providers most relevant to your question. Depending on the section you are using, you may be able to filter by geography, academic year, route, standard, apprenticeship level, provider type or individual provider.

Filters can be used to narrow the analysis, compare different markets, or test how the picture changes when you focus on a particular sector, standard or geographical area. When interpreting the data, it is important to check which filters are currently selected, as these will affect the figures, charts and comparisons shown on screen.

Can I compare my university with specific providers?

Yes. InsightU can be used to explore the activity of other providers operating in your market, sector or geographical area. This can help you understand who is delivering apprenticeship provision, which standards they offer, where they operate, their scale of delivery and how their activity is changing over time.

This can be particularly useful for reviewing competitor activity, understanding your relative market position, and identifying where other providers may be active in areas linked to your current or future apprenticeship offer.

Can I track changes over time?

Yes. InsightU includes trend data to help you understand how apprenticeship activity is changing over time. This may include trends in starts, achievements, market share, provider activity, sector demand and standard-level delivery.

Reviewing trends over time can help you identify areas of growth or decline, understand whether changes are short-term or longer-term, and support more informed decisions about curriculum planning, market development and future apprenticeship priorities.

How should I interpret growth opportunities?

Growth opportunities in InsightU should be interpreted as evidence points to support further discussion and planning, rather than as automatic recommendations. The platform can help highlight where demand is large, growing or changing, where competition may be stronger or weaker, or where provision may align with local skills needs and priority sectors.

Users should consider this insight alongside internal strategy, delivery capacity, employer relationships, quality considerations, local knowledge and wider institutional priorities before making decisions about developing or expanding provision.

Can InsightU help us review our apprenticeship portfolio?

Yes. InsightU can support apprenticeship portfolio review by bringing together evidence on demand, delivery trends, standards, provider activity, quality indicators, geography, skills needs and potential growth opportunities.

This can help users consider where existing provision is performing well, where it may need to be strengthened or reviewed, and where there may be opportunities to develop new or expanded provision. It can also support wider discussions about strategic priorities, curriculum planning, market positioning and alignment with local or regional skills needs.

How do I get support with using InsightU?

For additional help, guidance or support, please contact RCU.

Email: enquiries@rcu.co.uk
Telephone: 01772 734 855

 

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