Weekend learners make best of lockdown, survey finds

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The numbers of people using their ‘lockdown’ weekends to improve their skills have soared, according to analysis by online learning provider Circus Street.

The company, which offers digital skills training, found that 381% more workers were “reskilling” during the weekend since coronavirus lockdowns were imposed across the globe.

Saturdays in March saw an average increase in course activity of 500%, compared with a 64% average increase mid-week.

Most popular courses during weekends include digital marketing strategy, performance marketing and user experience. Courses in customer experience increased by 936% over weekends between February and March.

On weekdays, there have still been significant increases across some course areas: programmatic marketing went up by almost 3,000%, and digital marketing by 2,422%.

Overall, since lockdown, learners’ sessions have more than doubled, the company said.

More than 42,000 learners completed 9,421 hours of learning on Circus Street’s platform during March, compared with 7,587 in February. New learners increased by 135%.

“We expected learning to go up during the week, which it has slightly, but we were surprised to see such a big rise in weekend learning,” said Richard Townsend, founder and CEO of Circus Street. “We’ve been talking to our learners across the globe and many of them have told us that the pandemic has sharpened their focus and they’ve realised the need to learn new skills, especially around improving their ecommerce skills and agile working.”

“Remote working has meant a drastic change in many people’s working lives and so it’s perhaps no surprise that professionals want to improve agile working practices.

“Using weekends to reskill demonstrates that people are busier than ever during their working week but are using their downtime to catch up in an ever-changing digital world.”