The Q4 2025 benchmarking report for UK online learning providers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK online learning providers perform across the digital space.
The Q4 2025 benchmarking report for UK online learning providers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national online learning providers, including Open Study College, Oxbridge, Online Learning College, ICS Learn, Learndirect, Udemy, FutureLearn, Stonebridge College, NCC, Avado, LearnPac, and Reed.
The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online and quantifies the gaps, risks, and missed opportunities for other UK online learning companies to develop their brand’s voice, assess and up-level their domain authority score, track their organic traffic performance, and more. This report highlights the areas where brands are succeeding and categories where they could make improvements.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q4 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key take-aways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
Q4 2025 Winners LEaderboard
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 online learning providers on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing online learning providers, or request a copy of the report for the full review.
What The Industry Research Report Covers
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.
Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels
Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will under-perform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing. Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.
Pay-Per-Click Marketing
Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.
For Q4 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK online learning providers was £16,534, with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £35 . This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.
There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, Stonebridge College reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £0, and Avado has the highest at £124.
The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, NCC has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £995, and Udemy has the highest at £465,000.
By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.
Technical Website Compliance
Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. UK online learning companies should aim to make their website as error-free as possible to improve the trust consumers have in their brand as well as enhance their SEO performance.
In our previous audit, Online Learning College reported the most 404 errors (799). This quarter, Online Learning College remains the provider to watch, and they’ve since increased their 404 errors to a total of 929. When web pages are renamed, moved, or deleted, setting up proper 301 redirects keeps visitors and search engines directed to the right location. This helps preserve link equity and avoids frustrating dead ends.
Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance
When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. It’s important that a website doesn’t take any longer than 3 seconds to load, as any longer can cause a consumer to grow impatient and leave. Choosing a mobile-friendly theme is an effective way of boosting a brand’s site speed.
In our previous audit, Stonebridge College reported the slowest mobile site speed (48). This quarter, Stonebridge College has decreased their mobile site speed to 23, putting them at the bottom of the leaderboard, along with Learndirect (who also scored 23). An effective strategy to increase mobile site speed is to implement browser caching, meaning pages load faster regardless of visitors’ locations.
Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority
Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that is not gained through sponsored ads. UK online learning companies should focus on building their domain authority by building relationships with websites that have a similar target audience to increase the number of high-quality backlinks.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. In our last report, LearnPac received the lowest DA score (25). This quarter, LearnPac remains the provider with the lowest DA, and they’ve since decreased their score to 21. Ensuring fast loading speeds, secure HTTPS connections, and a clean site structure helps search engines crawl and index pages effectively. A technically sound website strengthens overall authority and user trust.
Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop
A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. UK online learning companies should track and assess their organic performance and pay close attention to the difference in results based on devices. Due to the nature of this industry, it’s expected that they’ll receive more traffic from users on a desktop.
Seven providers reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with FutureLearn receiving the biggest loss (-31%). On mobile, 8 providers reported a drop in organic traffic, with FutureLearn receiving the biggest loss on this device, too (34%). Improving user experience is another key factor. Fast loading times, clear navigation, and mobile-friendly layouts make visitors more likely to stay longer and explore. The better the browsing experience, the stronger the site’s ranking potential becomes.
Universal Search Opportunity
Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal Search results refer to rankings on a SERP, and a site can appear for Universal Search results without being strong in standard rankings. UK online learning companies will want to ensure they have a strong performance for 'reviews' and ‘people also ask to help increase their online rankings.
Reed is the brand to beat for the most Universal Search appearances (8,812) — an increase from 10,483 previously. The majority of this brand’s appearances came from ‘people also ask’ (7,400).
The Longtail Keyword Opportunity
Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand new search terms as they enter Google’s index. UK online learning companies can optimise their keyword strategy by incorporating phrases of 3+ words, such as ‘online learning company’ or ‘home learning provider.’
Reed continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (8,866) — a decrease from 9,165 previously. Reed also reported the most appearances for positions 4–10 (49,012) — a decrease from 55,076 previously. Brands should use longtail keywords in their internal linking strategy. Linking between pages using descriptive anchor text helps search engines understand content relationships and strengthens site structure. This also guides visitors toward related, relevant content seamlessly.
Facebook Adverts
With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) forecast to hit over 42 million users by 2022, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. For any online learning provider, Facebook ads are an opportunity to drive traffic to specific courses. If they haven’t already done so, they should be identifying under-subscribed courses to promote to improve numbers or using organic search term volumes as a guide for where general consumer interest lies.
We’ve included screenshots of Reed’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK online learning provider should look to make their images more creative to entice social media users.
Top Social Shares & Content
When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your brand engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. UK online learning companies will need to have a strong online presence so that consumers have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the brand first before making a purchase. Social media is also a great opportunity to reach new audiences and build its customer base.
FutureLearn secured the most Facebook Likes (314,400) and the most Instagram followers (75,400). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Udemy received the highest total engagement rate (19,368) and the highest average engagement (1,291).
Website Readability & Accessibility
20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, retailers lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Brands should focus on reducing accessibility alerts, errors, and contrast errors to improve readability for those using a screen reader.
In our previous audit, Reed reported the most accessibility alerts (68), and NCC flagged the most contrast errors (88). This quarter, Reed has slightly reduced their accessibility alerts by 1 point to 67 (though, they’re still the provider to watch). Additionally, NCC continues to report 88 contrast errors (the most of all providers). By fixing contrast errors and other accessibility issues early, websites reduce the risk of potential complaints or penalties related to poor usability.
Get the full 70-page Q4 2025 Report
To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Rory Tarplee.
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