Training has a price you can see. It appears on an invoice, needs approval and competes with other demands on the budget.
On the other hand, the cost of insufficient training is harder to spot.
It appears as an afternoon spent correcting a report. A customer refund. Overtime to put something right. A manager repeatedly stepping in because nobody else feels confident making the decision. These costs rarely arrive labelled “skills gap”. They disappear into the ordinary expense of running the business. That makes them easy to overlook. And, worth investigating.
What the official figures tell us
Employers judged 1.26 million employees lacked full proficiency in their roles, according to the UK Government’s Employer Skills Survey 2024, the latest published survey findings available at the time of writing (updated results will come out in 2027),
Among employer sites with skills gaps, the full report found that:
- 52% reported increased workloads for other staff.
- 29% reported higher operating costs.
- 24% reported difficulties meeting quality standards.
- 18% reported losing business or orders to competitors.
These figures apply to employers reporting skills gaps, not all UK businesses. They are employer-reported effects, rather than an audited calculation of money lost through insufficient training.
The invoice nobody sends
Imagine a small business where five employees each spend two hours a week correcting avoidable mistakes. Perhaps quotations need revising, customer records are incomplete or reports repeatedly come back for clarification.
Using an illustrative employment cost of £25 an hour, that represents: 5 people × 2 hours × £25 × 46 working weeks = £11,500 a year. This is a hypothetical calculation, not a research finding, It represents staff time consumed by rework, not necessarily £11,500 that could immediately be removed from the wage bill.
The distinction matters. Recovering time can create capacity to serve customers, complete projects or reduce overtime. Turning that capacity into financial value requires a deliberate decision about what happens next.
Nor should anyone assume training would eliminate all the rework. Some mistakes may arise from confusing instructions, inadequate systems or unrealistic workloads. The useful question is how much of the problem comes from skills people have never had the opportunity to develop.
Promotion does not automatically teach management
One expensive assumption deserves particular attention: that someone who performs well in a job will naturally know how to manage other people doing it.
They may understand the technical work thoroughly while feeling unprepared to delegate, give feedback or address a performance problem. So they take work back, avoid difficult conversations or check everything themselves.
Eventually, the manager becomes the person everyone waits for.
Gallup reports that its 2025 State of the Global Workplace research found only 44% of managers globally had ever received management training. This is a global finding, not a UK estimate, but it raises a useful question for any employer: have we prepared people for the responsibilities we have given them?
Gallup discusses the finding in How Managers Impact Team Productivity. Management development needs to reach beyond explaining policies. People need opportunities to practise conversations, receive feedback and use their learning when real difficulties arise.
What LinkedIn’s research adds
LinkedIn Learning’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report found that organisations with more mature career-development initiatives were more likely to report a positive outlook for profitability and confidence in attracting and retaining talent.
Its survey included 937 learning and HR professionals and 679 learners, alongside other research and platform analysis.
This is an association. It does not prove that purchasing training causes profit to rise, and a positive outlook is not the same as a measured increase in earnings. Nevertheless, it provides a business perspective on the connection between developing people and organisational confidence.
Taken together, the research supports giving skills development serious attention. It does not support treating every course as a guaranteed investment return.
Before buying training, find the expensive difficulty
Start with something observable.
Which reports need repeated rewriting? Where do customers have to contact you twice? Which project tasks regularly overrun? What decisions always end up with the same person?
Then investigate. Ask employees to explain where they struggle and what support would help. Check whether they understand the task, have the tools to complete it and have enough time.
If capability is the issue, choose learning that addresses the specific need. A report-writing course should help someone produce a clearer report. Coaching development should improve the conversations a manager actually holds.
Give people time to apply what they learn. Review their work, offer feedback and compare performance over a reasonable period. Track corrections, completion time, customer outcomes or another relevant measure, not simply how many courses were completed.
Include the full cost when assessing value: course fees, paid learning time, cover and follow-up support. Be equally careful about counting benefits. Time saved and extra sales may overlap; they should not automatically be added together.
A sensible first step this week is to identify one recurring problem and estimate the effort it consumes. You may discover a training need, a process problem or both.
Compound Knowledge’s practical, self-paced courses offer a starting point for developing workplace skills. Choose the learning around the work you want to improve and make room for people to use it.
The training invoice is only one part of the calculation. So is the cost of carrying on as you are.