In November 2025, OpenSesame’s partnership with the ECITB was recognised with a Gold Award at the Learning Technologies Awards 2025 for Best Digital Learning Transformation Programme. The judges called it “an inspiring example of sector-wide transformation through learning technology,” recognising a clear business case, smart use of tech to drive large-scale change, and the reinvestment of savings into future skills development.
Background: Powering 190,000 jobs through skills investment
The Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) is the employer-led skills, standards, and qualifications body for Great Britain’s engineering construction workforce. As a UK statutory body ECITB ensures the workforce is equipped with essential skills and qualifications across sectors such as oil and gas, power generation, chemicals, nuclear, and renewables.
Supporting around 190,000 jobs, the ECITB collaborates with employers and training providers to attract, develop, and qualify talent across craft, technical, and professional disciplines. It addresses industry-wide training gaps via a levy and grant system, investing approximately £25 million annually into skills development. Currently, 294 leviable establishments and 83,641 workers, across the industries, are in-scope.
The ECITB develops and maintains National Occupational Standards, which underpin its Training Standards, Vocational Qualifications, Technical Tests, and Licensed Programmes. A cornerstone of its five-year strategy is a digital learning transformation to prepare the workforce for Industry 4.0 and Net Zero transitions.
Challenge: The need for digital transformation
The engineering construction sector faces several long-term workforce challenges:
- Increasing demand for digital skills aligned with Industry 4.0, ED&I and sustainability goals
- A workforce with career pathways requiring new skills
Historically, training relies on in-person delivery at physical classrooms, which is still the case for practical training, but knowledge can be completed more efficiently, for some organisations. The digital transformation project started in 2020, and the ECITB rolled out a centralised learning solution to address these challenges.
Objectives: Delivering a workforce-ready digital strategy
- Modernise skills delivery through a flexible, digital-first model
- Expand access to training across large and small organisations
- Offer a cost-effective alternative to in-person training
- Support green energy and Industry 4.0 workforce transitions
Implementation: A full ecosystem of learning technologies
The ECITB introduced a digital platform offering an intuitive, flexible, and accessible learning experience. By integrating Learning Pool’s Stream LXP and OpenSesame’s course marketplace, the ECITB created a robust, data-driven learning ecosystem.
The ECITB’s integrated digital learning environment is designed to support a seamless, data-driven, and engaging experience for learners and administrators alike. It brings together multiple tools and technologies to deliver, manage, and optimise learning at scale.
The centralised learning platform offers organisations a comprehensive and flexible learning solution specifically designed for the engineering construction industry (ECI):
- Organisations who do not have the capacity to manage their own online learning system can simply join the ECITB Learn Academy to access 8,500+ courses (95% from OpenSesame) without managing their own LMS.
- Those organisations who have the administrative resources can create their own online learning environment with a branded Employer Owned Academy (EOA), leveraging ECITB’s tested platform while maintaining their corporate identity.
- For organisations with an established Learning Management System (LMS) or LXP, e-learning files can be transferred via Content File Transfer (CFT) to integrate OpenSesame content into existing LMS or LXP systems.
All content is mobile-friendly, on-demand, and aligned with industry needs, allowing learners to build personalised training paths.
Learners access soft skills, safety training, and desk-based technical skills via OpenSesame, including popular topics like Cyber Security, GDPR, Environmental Awareness, Excel, First Aid, and ED&I. Content is aligned with National Occupational Standards (NOS), providing recognised certification and a wide variety of personal development courses.
The OpenSesame partnership allows the ECITB to offer high-quality courses from leading publishers without managing multiple vendor relationships.
Results: Broadening access and driving measurable ROI
Since its launch on 2 January 2023, the platform has enabled:
- 103,417 course completions across 181 organisations.
- £3.5 million in added value, including 2024’s 45,000 completions (£1.5 million) and 48,000 in 2025 to date (£1.65 million).
- £22,000 in average annual cost savings per company, with organisations accessing £6,791 worth of training on average.
Notably, 78% of organisations had never previously claimed e-learning grants, showing the platform’s role in broadening access. Efficiency has improved, reducing per-course costs from £34 to £10.
The learning solution has transformed learning culture—training is now self-directed, accessible, and continuous for small firms and large organisations alike.
An estimated £500,000 in savings from grant payment reductions has been reinvested into attracting new entrants and supporting green energy workforce transitions.
Evaluation and metrics: A fundamental change in skills development across eight industry sectors
Heat maps show OpenSesame usage data plays a key role in supporting the ECITB’s content strategy and continuous improvement across its learning ecosystem.
The ECITB’s Customer Success Manager at OpenSesame provides them with detailed usage reports, including enrollments, completion rates, average course ratings, and category-level insights. These reports help the ECITB identify high-performing content, detect underutilised areas, and optimise their centralised playlists. The ECITB uses the content intelligence platform to curate content based on specific needs, using metadata of the OpenSesame content. In addition, the OpenSesame team curates and recommends relevant EMEA publishers based on requested topics, in line with organisational requirements.
The ECITB’s digital learning transformation has fundamentally changed how the engineering construction industry develops skills. It provides scalable, low-cost, high-impact training aligned with national standards and industry needs.
This transformation marks a cultural shift in training, toward continuous, self-directed learning that’s accessible at scale, setting a new national benchmark.
Since 2023 the solution has achieved the following:
