How to Measure Employability Training Outcomes. A Commissioner's Guide

Commissioning employability training is straightforward. Knowing whether it worked is harder. This guide is for commissioners who want to move beyond completion rates to genuine outcome measurement — and who want to know what to expect from a provider that takes outcomes seriously.


The Problem With Completion Rates

Completion rates are the default metric because they are easy to collect. But a programme can have a 90% completion rate and a 15% employment rate. That is not a success.

The things that matter are:

  • Employment rates at three months

  • Employment rates at six months

  • Job sustainability — whether people are still in work at twelve months

  • For small business programmes: revenue change, customer acquisition, business survival

Our Approach

What to Measure and When

During the programme:

  • Attendance rate — participants who attend all or most sessions have higher employment rates

  • Confidence assessment (pre and post) — gives a quantified confidence shift

  • Digital skills assessment (pre and post) — documents the training impact

At programme end:

  • Completion documentation

  • Participant feedback — qualitative and quantitative, capturing confidence and readiness for work

At three months:

  • Employment status: employed, self-employed, in training, or still seeking

  • Job type and sector

  • Business status for small business participants

At six months:

  • Employment retention — whether participants who got jobs are still in them

  • Progression — higher hours, better pay, or greater responsibility

  • Business growth indicators — revenue, customers, any hiring

What Good Reporting Looks Like

Good reporting includes honest numbers — not only the positive cases. It tells you what percentage of participants entered employment, what types of roles, whether they were still employed at follow-up, and what the barriers were for those who did not progress.

At Digital Gum, our reports include:

  • Attendance data by session

  • Pre and post confidence and digital skills assessments

  • Three-month employment status for all participants, including those we could not contact

  • Six-month employment status where contactable

  • Case studies that describe real participant journeys, including setbacks

  • Honest commentary on what worked and what did not

Questions to Ask Any Training Provider

  • What percentage of your previous cohort participants entered employment within six months?

  • Do you follow up at six months or only at programme end?

  • What do you count as an employment outcome?

  • How do you measure confidence, not just skills?

  • What is your attendance rate, and your protocol for participants who stop attending?

  • Can you show me a real outcomes report from a previous cohort?

A provider who cannot answer these questions with specific numbers from their own delivery data is not an outcomes-focused provider.