A catalogue of 28 L&D workshops sounds comprehensive. But "comprehensive" is the wrong test. The right test is: does it cover what UK employers are actually trying to buy in 2026? We ran the analysis. The answer was "70% yes". This post is about the other 30%.
The data we started from
Three sources mattered for this exercise.
First, the CIPD Skills & Learning at Work survey 2026. The #1 reported capability gap among UK employers was "leadership and influencing skills". Nine out of ten employers said they were facing a skills shortage, with operational roles hit hardest. Two-thirds said their leadership team wasn't fully equipped to lead in an AI-enabled environment.
Second, the WEF Future of Jobs 2025 / Skills Outlook. The four highest-velocity skills employers were buying for: resilience and stress tolerance, analytical thinking, creative thinking, and emotional intelligence. Creative thinking specifically was projected to rise to 73% employer demand within five years — outpacing analytical thinking.
Third, the competitor catalogues. We benchmarked our 28 workshops against Hemsley Fraser (in Training Industry's Top 20 leadership providers for the 17th consecutive year), FranklinCovey UK (the 7 Habits and Speed of Trust franchises), MTD Training, QA, Reed Learning, and a handful of niche specialists. We weren't looking for things we could copy — we were looking for the topics every credible UK competitor offered that we didn't.
The honest finding
Our catalogue covered about 70% of the demand signal. The 30% gap concentrated in three areas:
One: manager fundamentals. Specifically the new-manager market. Every credible competitor leads with First-Time Manager Foundations — we routed those buyers straight into our Coaching for Performance workshop, which assumes management foundations the buyer doesn't yet have.
Two: the resilience and emotional intelligence layer. We had Mental Health First Aid (reactive — responding to crisis) but no preventative resilience workshop. We had Insights Discovery and 360 Feedback (profile-based) but no standalone Emotional Intelligence workshop. Every credible competitor has both. We were folding them into other workshops; the market wanted them named clearly and bought separately.
Three: the AI-augmented role set. Our Advanced AI Accelerator is engineering-oriented. Our AI Policy Drafting is governance-oriented. We had no workshop sitting between them aimed at functional teams who buy and use AI in their day job — and HR is the function with the highest legal exposure and most active buying intent for that.
The 5 workshops we're shipping
1. First-Time Manager Foundations
Built on Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership and the CMI Team Leader L3 standard. Tackles the identity shift from doer to manager, the 1:1 cadence, delegating without abdicating, and the 90-day plan for landing the role. Full day. The single biggest gap in our catalogue. See the page →
2. Resilience at Work
Built on the WRAW (Workplace Resilience and Wellbeing) framework and Susan David's emotional agility. Preventative — building capacity before crisis, rather than responding after it. Pairs with our existing Mental Health First Aid (which stays reactive). Half day. UK burnout claims are up 30% year on year; the fastest-growing L&D topic in the market. See the page →
3. Emotional Intelligence for Leaders
Built on Daniel Goleman's 4 domains and the Mayer-Salovey four-branch model. Most EQ training is theory. This one drills EQ in five real leadership moments: the 1:1 with a frustrated direct report, the conflict between peers, the high-stakes presentation, the post-restructure team meeting, and the feedback to a senior leader. Half or full day. WEF's #2 in-demand skill for 2026. See the page →
4. Train the Trainer
Built on Knowles' adult learning theory, Kolb's experiential cycle, ADDIE and Bloom's taxonomy. For internal trainers who design and deliver workplace learning without formal trainer training. Two live delivery rounds with practitioner feedback in the afternoon — so trainers leave with a designed session and the muscle memory to deliver it. Full day. A category-killer workshop for every credible UK L&D provider, and we hadn't been offering it. See the page →
5. AI for HR & People Teams
Built on UK GDPR, the EU AI Act (in force for high-risk HR use from August 2026), ICO guidance, and ACAS guidance. Covers AI in screening (and the legal traps), AI-generated L&D content, AI in performance reviews, and employee data governance. The afternoon drafts the HR section of an AI policy your CISO, Legal team and DPO can sign off. Full day. HR is the function with the highest legal exposure from getting AI wrong — and the function least likely to have had formal AI training. See the page →
The 9 we deliberately rejected
We considered eight more workshops on top of these five. Three (Hybrid & Remote Leadership, Strategic Thinking & Decision-Making, Customer Service Excellence) are strong "Tier 2" — we'll add them if demand justifies. The other nine we actively decided not to build:
- Negotiation Skills — already inside our Objections & Negotiation and Conflict Resolution workshops.
- Project Management Basics — wrong shape. Sits outside our positioning and competes with Prince2, APM and PMI providers who own that market.
- Performance Management — covered by Coaching for Performance plus 360 Feedback combined. A standalone would cannibalise both.
- Imposter Syndrome / Confidence — typically a 90-minute lunch-and-learn, not a half-day workshop.
- Personal Branding — webinar territory, not workshop territory.
- Storytelling for Leaders — already inside Presentation Skills (Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle plus narrative arc).
- Cross-Cultural Communication — inside Inclusion & Belonging. Low standalone UK demand outside global enterprises.
- Wellbeing Strategy — this is a consulting engagement, not a workshop.
- Financial Literacy for Non-Finance — adjacent to our positioning but with a different buyer (the Finance Director, not the L&D lead).
The reject list matters as much as the launch list. A catalogue gets weaker, not stronger, when you say yes to everything.
What's strong in our existing catalogue
The benchmarking exercise was also useful for naming what we already do well versus the UK market.
Our AI literacy stack is best-in-class. Advanced AI Accelerator and AI Policy Drafting are more advanced than the equivalents at Hemsley Fraser, FranklinCovey or MTD — most of whom are still running "intro to ChatGPT" workshops. Build AI Agents is the only 2-day agentic-AI workshop we've found in the UK L&D market.
Our People & Wellbeing niche (Menopause Awareness, Neurodiversity, Sustainability alongside the standard Mental Health First Aid and Inclusion & Belonging) is unusual breadth for a provider our size.
Our sales catalogue depth — 8 workshops, all on the rich premium template — is competitive with Sandler Training and Force Management UK. And our matrix Standard 2025 independent verification is a sales asset most competitors simply don't have.
The new catalogue, in shape
We're now at 33 L&D workshops across four categories:
- Leadership & Management (10) — Coaching for Performance, First-Time Manager Foundations, Navigating Change, Difficult Conversations, Conflict Resolution, Presentation Skills, Time Management, Creative Thinking, Stakeholder Management, Train the Trainer
- People & Wellbeing (9) — Inclusion & Belonging, Insights Discovery, 360 Feedback, Mental Health First Aid, Resilience at Work, Emotional Intelligence for Leaders, Menopause Awareness, Neurodiversity, Sustainability
- AI & Digital (6) — Advanced AI Accelerator, AI Policy Drafting, AI for HR & People Teams, Cyber Awareness, Data Storytelling, Short-Form Video
- Sales & Commercial (8) — Key Account Management, Customer Experience, Sales Strategy & Planning, Coaching for Sales, Objections & Negotiation, Sales Ops & CRM, Sales Recruitment, Sales Skills
Still tight enough to be navigable. Broad enough to cover 90%+ of typical employer demand. Every workshop is on the same premium template, with an anchored framework lineage, six concrete outcomes, a timed agenda, and a clear progression path into the matching TESS apprenticeship.
What's next
If your team is buying L&D in 2026 and one of these five is on your shortlist, get in touch. Book a 30-minute discovery call — we'll talk through the cohort, the format, the price, and whether it's right for your team. Or browse the full L&D Workshops catalogue.
And if you think we've missed a gap of our own — a workshop the market needs that we haven't built — drop me a line. The next round of the analysis is already in motion.