iED CPD Online: Skills analysis in local economic development

Important – this webinar will run over 2 separate sessions, each running for 60 minutes on the 18th and 19th March 2026.

This CPD course, hosted by the Institute of Economic Development (IED), is a specialised training program designed for professionals in local government and regional planning. It addresses the critical “disconnect” between the skills people have and the skills local economies actually need to grow.

Core Objectives of the Training
The sessions aim to bridge the gap between abstract labour market data and practical economic strategy. This will cover:

• Linking Skills to Productivity: Understanding how “under-skilling” (gaps) and “under-utilisation” (mismatches) act as a drag on productivity within the national, regional, and local economy.
• Utilising Skills Taxonomies: Learning to use frameworks (like those from Lightcast or Nesta) that categorise thousands of specific skills into a structured hierarchy. This helps identify, for example, exactly which “Green Skills” or “Digital Skills” are missing in a specific postcode.
• Influencing Education Supply: Using hard data on “Skills Demand” (from job postings and employer surveys) to convince colleges and universities to adjust their curriculum to meet local industry needs.

This course will be run by Will Cookson who is a Director at Lightcast, a global leader in labour market analytics. He specialises in helping local authorities and combined authorities use “Labour Market Insight” to bring real-time localised evidence to decision-making, building strategies and economic planning activities.

Attendance is open to both iED members and non iED members.

For those of you completing the Certificate in Economic Development, this is one of the modules in that programme. You do not need to book on via Eventbrite.

The webinar sessions will be on:

18th March 11am – 12pm

19th March 11am – 12pm

There is an expectation that delegates will attend both webinars. If you are unable to attend both, you can request a recording of the missed webinar, but there will be no discount should you not be able to attend both.

Please note that the webinars will be conducted via MS Teams and you will be able to ask live questions via the chat during the course of the sessions.

The inclusive price for this session (2 x 120 minute webinars) is £75 for iED members and £145 for non iED members. No VAT is chargeable. Pay by invoice is possible.

To book onto this course, please visit our Eventbrite page here. A “pay by invoice” option is possible.

Please note, if you are not yet an iED member, why not consider joining to take advantage of the member rate for this and future CPD events? Get in touch with us at admin@ied.co.uk for further info.

We will send you a link to each webinar in the days running up to the first session.

Remember, the iED requires ALL associate and full members to log at least 40 hours of CPD over a two year period. Half of all CPD logged – 20 hours – needs to consist of formal CPD activity.