Learning Strategy Benchmarking Data Report

The problem is not that learning functions are failing at the basics. Only 6.2% of organizations score 50 or below. Most have working programs, reasonable content, and employees who consume content and programs on offer.

The problem is what comes after the basics. Two thirds of organizations (64.0%) score between 71 and 110, spanning the top of Reactive and the whole of Operational. Most of the profession sits here: functions that deliver competently and cannot demonstrate what that delivery is worth.

The standard deviation across total scores is 22.2 points, which means organizations are spread widely, not clustered near the average. An organization scoring 63 and an organization scoring 108 are both within one standard deviation of the mean, and they are running learning functions with little in common.

That spread matters for benchmarking. A single average figure tells a learning leader very little. The percentile benchmarks in Section 10 give a more useful comparison, and the dimension-level detail in Sections 3 to 8 shows where the differences between organizations actually sit.

The ranking splits into two groups. The top three — content, alignment, culture — describe what learning looks like to the people who receive it. Courses, formats, accessibility, the sense that the organization values development.

The bottom three — measurement, governance, technology — describe the operations behind learning: what gets built, what would prove whether it worked, and what connects the systems that deliver it.

The data tells us that learning functions are better at producing learning than at running the operation behind it.

Organizations differ from each other most on governance. Around one in six scores 18 or above out of 25 with a standing body that oversees learning strategy, named decision rights, and initiatives ranked across the enterprise. More than a quarter scores 9 or below, where none of that exists. No other dimension separates organizations that far.

Technology is the opposite. Organizations sit closer together here than on any other dimension, and the average is the lowest of the six. Platforms are in place and running; the roadmaps, the use of learner data, and the plans for AI are not — and that pattern holds right across the study.

Every dimension correlates with total score, which is expected — each contributes to the total. What differs is how strongly.

Measurement leads. Organizations that measure well tend to score well everywhere else, more reliably than for any other dimension. Section 7 in this report examines why.

Technology sits last. Its weaker relationship with total score reflects that technology investment happens somewhat independently of the rest — organizations buy platforms whether or not the surrounding practices are in place.

The highest and lowest scoring statements in this dimension both describe the relationship between learning leaders and their executives. One measures how often they meet: regular executive conversations score 3.33. The other measures what they can prove when they do: learning tied to performance metrics and KPIs scores 2.67.

Learning leaders are discussing business goals with executives without being able to show what learning contributed to those goals.

Fewer than one organization in four can connect learning to the numbers executives care about.

This affects how leaders regard the function. The statement "business leaders see L&D as a strategic enabler" scores 2.93, which is 0.40 points below executive access.

Data shows us that learning leaders are now present in executive conversations. Being consequential in them and influencing decision making is the clearest next step for the role.

Without numbers linking learning to business and financial performance, a learning leader can only describe what the team has built and delivered.

Organizations with a formal learning strategy score 17.5 out of 25 on alignment. Those without score 12.4. Of the six dimensions, this is the widest strategy-related gap — wider than content at 4.9 and measurement at 4.8.

That is not a surprise. Formalizing a learning strategy means deciding which business goals learning will support, which capabilities matter most, and how success will be measured. Those are the same decisions the alignment statements ask about.

Organizations part-way through also land part-way between: 14.5, almost exactly midway. Data shows us that alignment starts improving even before the strategy work is finished. Talking to executives and connecting learning to business goals lifts the alignment score while the strategy is in development.

Of the six dimensions, alignment is where organizations of 201 to 1,000 employees sit furthest below larger organizations. They average 14.2 out of 25, against 16.4 for organizations above 1,000 employees.

Mid-market learning leaders report weaker results on three specific practices:

Each of those gaps is about half a rating level. Across the whole dimension, the mid-market sits 2.2 points below organizations above 1,000.

Prioritizing learning at enterprise level scores highest in this dimension at 2.91. Having a cross-functional body to oversee learning strategy scores lowest at 2.37.

Decisions about learning investment are getting made, but in most organizations no standing group is accountable for making them.

The governance body question produces the most divided response of any statement in the scorecard:

Answers cluster at the two ends of the scale. More than a third of organizations (36.8%) say no such body exists. One organization in five sits in the middle, at a 3.

Where no governance body exists, decisions about learning still get made. Enterprise-level prioritization scores 2.91, the highest statement in the dimension — someone is ranking learning initiatives across the business. What is missing is everything around those decisions. Who holds the right to make them scores 2.62. Whether people from across the business are involved scores 2.45. Whether anyone reviews how the decisions get made scores 2.51.

So learning gets prioritized, but the prioritizing is done by whoever happens to be doing it, without agreed authority, without the business in the room, and without anyone checking the method afterwards.

Governance has the widest spread in the study, at 5.0 points. Alignment, by comparison, sits at 4.3 and technology at 4.2. A wide spread means organizations sit far apart from one another, not clustered around the average. The distance shows clearly at the two ends of the study:

That is a gap of more than ten points on a 25-point dimension. On alignment, content, and culture, the strongest and weakest organizations sit far closer together.

For learning leaders, this makes governance a useful diagnostic. A low governance score alongside reasonable scores elsewhere identifies a specific, fixable problem rather than a general shortfall.

Organizations with a formal learning strategy score 4.3 points higher on governance than those without.

Governance is measured through five statements, each rated 1 to 5. A 4.3-point difference means four of the five practices rated one level higher — moving, for example, from "inconsistent practice" to "consistently applied" across teams and functions.

The connection runs in one direction. Formalizing a learning strategy requires agreeing who decides what, who is accountable for delivery, and how competing requests get ranked. Those agreements form the core of governance — and part of the strategy work.

The two highest statements in this dimension both describe technology that exists and works. Platforms are integrated at 2.89 out of 5, technologies are user-friendly and widely adopted at 2.83 — around a 3, meaning the practice is in place in parts of the organization (but patchy in others). Using the data those platforms produce scores lower, at 2.10. Here is how organizations rated it:

Every learning platform records completions. What 67.8% of organizations do not do is use that record to decide what learning each employee is offered. That unused data matters more than it ever has, since it is the same data AI needs to personalize learning at any scale.

A strategy for AI and automation in learning scores 2.07 out of 5 — the lowest of all 30 statements in the scorecard.

The January 2026 benchmark report recorded 1.97 on the same statement. Seven months later the figure has moved by one-tenth of a point, which is to say it has not meaningfully moved at all.

Organizations sit unusually close together on this statement. The spread of 1.01 is the narrowest in the dimension, which means low AI scores appear across the entire sample, not just among organizations with lower overall maturity. Learning leaders benchmarking against their peers on AI readiness will find almost everyone in the same position.

The challenge is that AI applied to learning requires learner data that is integrated, current, and trusted — and 67.8% of organizations have not built that. Buying AI tools before the data foundation exists produces capability with nothing to apply it to.

Organizations with a formal strategy score 13.3 out of 25 on technology. Those without score 10.1 — a 3.2-point gap, the narrowest of the six dimensions. Technology is also the lowest-scoring dimension overall.

Organizations score highest in this dimension on offering learning in a mix of formats (video, social, interactive) at 3.54. They score lowest on having a defined content strategy and taxonomy, at 2.77.

Learning teams are building varied, accessible, well-received content without an agreed framework for what exists, how it is labelled, or how it maps to the skills the business needs.

Two data points back this up:

A taxonomy is the system that says what each piece of content covers, which role or skill it serves, who owns it, and when it expires. Without one, organizations may produce the same course twice in different business units, cannot answer which critical skills the catalogue actually covers, and have no reliable basis for deciding what to retire.

Content quality is not the problem in most learning functions. Knowing what they already have is.

Not knowing what content you have turns out to be linked to not knowing what it achieved.

Content correlates with Measurement and Analytics at 0.69 — the strongest relationship between any two dimensions in the study.

Correlation of this strength means organizations that score high on one almost always score high on the other. The two dimensions require the same underlying discipline: knowing what exists, deciding what it is for, and measuring whether it worked.

For learning leaders, this indicates that investment in content organization and investment in measurement are not competing priorities.

Organizations with a formal learning strategy score 4.9 points higher on content than those without.

Content is measured through five statements, each rated 1 to 5. A 4.9-point difference means all five practices rated one level higher — moving, for example, from "inconsistent practice" to "consistently applied" across teams and functions.

This is the second widest strategy-related gap in the study, behind alignment.

Formalizing a learning strategy requires deciding which capabilities matter most to the business. That decision is what a content taxonomy organizes against.

Organizations score highest in this dimension on communicating metrics to leadership, at 2.90, and lowest on having dashboards that inform strategic decisions, at 2.30.

The two are very different activities. A report can be pulled together after the fact from whatever is already available. A dashboard means deciding in advance which numbers matter and sticking to them, and only 25.2% of organizations tie learning outcomes to business impact at all.

Across all 30 statements in the scorecard, "learning outcomes tied to business impact" has the strongest relationship with total maturity score, at 0.75.

A correlation of 0.75 means organizations scoring well on this statement almost always score well overall, and organizations scoring poorly on it rarely score well anywhere. Of the five statements most strongly associated with high total scores, three come from this dimension.

This connects directly to a finding in Section 3. Learning leaders report frequent executive access, at 3.33, but weaker standing as a strategic enabler, at 2.93. Measurement is what closes that gap. Executives extend influence to functions that can demonstrate a contribution to results, and demonstrating that contribution is what this dimension measures.

Organizations with a formal learning strategy score 4.8 points higher on measurement than those without.

Measurement is measured through five statements, each rated 1 to 5. A 4.8-point difference means all five practices rated one level higher — moving, for example, from "inconsistent practice" to "consistently applied" across teams and functions.

The connection is direct. Formalizing a learning strategy requires stating how success will be measured. An organization that has answered that question knows exactly what to look at.

Measurement is the only dimension that has shifted significantly since the last edition of this benchmarking study. The January 2026 report recorded 14.2 out of 25. The 141 organizations that have responded since scored 12.9. The statement that fell furthest asks whether an organization tracks more than completions and satisfaction, down from 2.97 to 2.54.

It's not an apples to apples comparison because fewer of the newer respondents have a formal learning strategy in place — 41.7% versus 57.4% — and more sit in mid market (vs. enterprises). Account for those two things and the difference between the groups disappears entirely.

The drop represents the survey audience, not a real decline. Organizations that have not finished their strategy work score lower on all six dimensions — but measurement is the only one where the shift in the respondent mix was large enough to show. Alignment, governance, technology, content and culture held steady between the two groups.

Learning embedded in company culture scores 3.12. Leaders modeling continuous learning scores 2.80. Every respondent rated both statements about their own organization, so the gap sits inside each one: a culture learning leaders judge reasonably healthy, and senior leaders they do not see taking part in it.

Employees judge what an organization values by what its leaders do, not by what its policies state. Where senior leaders do not visibly participate in learning, culture programs carry a credibility problem no amount of internal communication resolves.

Learning connected to performance and growth conversations scores 2.83, against 3.12 for employees feeling supported and encouraged to learn.

Employees are told learning matters and are given access to it. Only 26.7% of organizations connect it to performance and growth conversations, so for most people the learning they do and the discussion of where they are going next are separate.

That limits what learning can do for retention and internal mobility. An employee who completes a development program and hears nothing about it when their progression is discussed learns what the organization actually rewards.

"Learning embedded in company culture" has the second strongest relationship with total maturity score of all 30 statements, at 0.74.

A correlation this strong does not mean culture work raises overall maturity. Culture scores rise when the practices in the other five dimensions are already working — when learning connects to business goals, when governance gives the function a clear remit and a way to prioritize, and when measurement demonstrates results.

For learning leaders, this changes where to look when culture scores come back low. The cause usually sits in alignment, governance, or measurement rather than in culture itself.

Organizations with a formal learning strategy score 4.3 points higher on culture than those without.

Culture is measured through five statements, each rated 1 to 5. A 4.3-point difference means four of the five practices rated one level higher — moving, for example, from "inconsistent practice" to "consistently applied" across teams and functions.

Overall learning maturity — the combined score across all six dimensions — increases with company size up to roughly 1,000 employees. Above that point it holds steady.

Organizations of 1,001–5,000 employees average 89.4 out of 150. Organizations of 5,000+ employees average 89.5. The difference between these two groups is one-tenth of a point on a 150-point scale.

That runs against a common assumption. Larger enterprises hold larger L&D budgets, larger teams, and more capable technology. Those advantages are real, and they are offset by what comes with scale: more business units to align, longer approval chains, more legacy systems to connect, and greater distance between the learning function and the executives setting priorities.

The net effect is neutral. Organizations above 1,000 employees sit in the same maturity band whatever their size, and show the same pattern across the six dimensions — highest on content and alignment, lowest on technology and governance. Growing past 1,000 employees does not advance a learning function, and it does not hold one back.

Organizations between 201 and 1,000 employees average 79.6 out of 150 — around ten points below both larger groups, or ten of the thirty rated practices sitting one level lower.

The obvious explanation is size — smaller budgets, smaller teams, less to work with. That explanation does not survive the data, and what replaces it is a useful finding for anyone running a mid-market learning function.

The ten-point gap is not spread evenly. Alignment to Business Strategy shows the widest difference, at 2.2 points out of 25 — the clearest size-related finding in the study, and one that would appear by chance in roughly one survey in five thousand.

The individual statements show what that means in practice.

The above figures describe a learning function operating at a distance from the business it serves. Mid-market learning leaders meet executives less often, connect their work to business goals less clearly, and demonstrate performance impact less consistently than their counterparts in larger organizations.

Learning Governance is the exception, at 1.1 points — narrow enough that it could be down to which companies happened to answer. On governance, organizations between 201 and 1,000 employees have decision-making structures broadly comparable to those in far larger companies.

On the machinery for making decisions about learning, mid-market functions are no further behind than larger organizations. Where they fall furthest behind is connecting that learning to the business.

What raises an organization's maturity score is finishing a formal learning strategy (versus size).

Between two organizations of the same headcount, the one with a formal learning strategy scores 27 points higher out of 150 — 27 of the 30 rated practices sitting one level up, and the most statistically solid finding in the study. Between two organizations at the same stage on strategy, headcount is worth about 5.5 points, a difference that would be considered normal variation between organizations.

Organizations between 201 and 1,000 employees do not trail large organizations because they are mid-sized. They trail because 40.5% of them have a formal learning strategy in place, against 63.3% of organizations with 1,001–5,000 employees.

Company size is a signal of strategy maturity rather than a driver of it.

Knowing that an organization employs 20,000 people is useful mainly because it predicts that the organization has a formal learning strategy. Where a mid-market organization has completed that work, its scores rise accordingly.

The gap is not explained by lack of intent. Organizations between 201 and 1,000 employees report the highest rate of active strategy work of any band above 200 employees: 38.1% have a learning strategy in development, against 21.7% of organizations with 1,001–5,000 employees.

So, mid-market L&D teams are definitely engaged with this work, but a smaller proportion have carried it through to a formal strategy.

A mid-market organization with no learning strategy averages 60.6, placing it in the Reactive band. In these organizations:

A mid-market organization with a formal strategy in place averages 89.8, placing it in the Operational band. Here, learning initiatives connect to stated business goals, the function has a defined remit, and leadership recognizes L&D as part of how the organization delivers on its plans.

WeLearn sees four factors behind the mid-market gap.

The 29 industry categories in the scorecard, plus an "Other" option, were grouped into seven sectors for analysis. Every sector averages between 84.7 and 89.1 out of 150.

The full range across every sector is 4.4 points out of 150 — fewer than five of the 30 rated practices separating the highest-scoring sector from the lowest. Set against the 27 points a formal learning strategy is worth, sector barely registers.

Learning leaders should benchmark against the overall distribution in Section 10, and against organizations of similar size using Figure 13.

This August 2026 benchmark report draws on 258 responses, with each sector holding between 18 and 60 organizations, enough that no single company skews a sector's average.

Seven sectors covering regulated and unregulated industries, capital-intensive and service businesses, public and private organizations, all landing within five points of one another. Learning maturity is determined by how a learning function is run, not by the industry it operates in.

Technology has the lowest top-quarter threshold of any dimension at 15 out of 25. An organization can reach the top 25% of the profession on technology while still sitting below "consistently applied". That reflects how weak technology scores are across the study than how strong the organization is.

Scoring 105 places an organization in the top fifth of the profession. Scoring 130 places it in the top 2%.