Continuing Professional Development

Are you looking for a quick and effective way to build new skills within your team? With over 40 courses to choose from, including digital marketing, digital transformation, business management, and more, we offer digestible, bite-sized learning that can be completed at your employees' own pace.

Key benefits

Typically 10-50 hours of self-paced study
Most are available to start at any time
Suitable for beginners and those with some experience
Created by leading OU academics or industry experts
Stay up-to-date with industry trends
Test understanding with reflection and multiple-choice questions
Learn in an engaging and interactive environment on the OU's platform

Sponsor an employee or a group of employees by paying some or all of their course fees.

Contact us today to learn more about our CPD courses, request a registration pack, or explore flexible learning options tailored to your needs.

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Explore CPD courses

Business and Management

Course	Description
Analytical thinking for problem solving	Develop the analytical and problem-solving skills needed to contribute effectively in organisations.
Behavioural insights for the workplace	Learn how and why people interact in different ways and how this contributes to the successful working of organisations.
Business agility foundations	Discover the essential elements of business agility and how it can improve performance, create efficient teams, and benefit organisations.
Business agility intermediate	Discover business agility frameworks and tools that can develop agility in leadership, culture, people, strategy, and governance.
Collaboration skills for the workplace	Consider your own approach to collaboration and explore collaboration within organisations.
Communication skills in the digital world	Explore changes in the way we communicate in the digital era and the tools to make more effective communications.
Creating a successful and sustainable business	Learn about the approaches and methodologies for sustainable business and how to implement a sustainable impact for positive change.
Creative thinking for the workplace	Reflect on your creative journey, and learn new tools, skills and approaches to add value to organisations.
Design thinking in the digital world	Learn what ‘design thinking’ is, how it can create value and explore how it is used.
Introduction to business and workplace coaching	This is ideal if you've little or no coaching experience and want to use coaching to develop people, ensure wellbeing and enable performance.
Developing a coaching culture	Develop your people, their wellbeing and the organisation you work in using a coaching approach.
Developing strategy to manage uncertainty	This course will teach you what a strategy is, who can be a strategist and how to develop a strategic mindset.
Developing team leader skills	Learn various techniques to develop teamworking skills and understand the challenges of teamworking in ever-changing environments.
Evaluating financial performance	This course deals with performance measures that can be calculated from information in published and audited financial statements.
Leadership in the digital world	Explore aspects of leadership and the importance of effective leadership in a digital era.
Managing a budget	Learn how to use financial techniques in managerial decision-making and become more confident about dealing with finance professionals.
Managing change in the digital world	Discover the different aspects of managing change and planning for change – even when the nature of the change is unknown.
Managing uncertainty through monitoring and control	Learn about the importance of strategic monitoring and control systems to effective strategy implementation.
Managing uncertainty through policy implementation	Discover why public policies and services have become so important and the relationship between policy and organisational life.
Organisational behaviour in the workplace	This course focuses on interactions in and around organisations, and the variety of environments that organisations network with.
Start your own business	Gain the knowledge and practical skills to turn your small business ambitions into reality.
The impact of storytelling in business	In this course, you'll consider aspects of storytelling at the personal, organisational, and social levels.
Understanding financial statements	Develop a general knowledge of financial reports and accounting concepts to understand the uses of financial statements.

Communication and Cultures

Course	Description
An introduction to artificial intelligence	Examine historical, ethical and social issues around Artificial Intelligence technology.
AI language technology in the workplace	Explore Language Technology, a rising form of Artificial Intelligence, and its impact in our working lives.
An introduction to intercultural competence in the workplace	Improve your intercultural communication skills in the workplace.

Counselling and Social Care

Course	Description
Advanced therapeutic relationships	Develop an advanced understanding of how to work effectively with the therapeutic relationship.
Introduction to social care	Gain an introduction to social care and the role of paid and unpaid care work in today’s social care sector.
Online counselling: advancing your knowledge	Advance your understanding of how to provide online counselling effectively and safely.
Online counselling: getting started	Written in partnership with leading professional bodies, this course introduces practitioners to online counselling and setting up an video/phone provision with clients.
Trauma-informed counselling	Enhance your understanding of trauma-informed counselling, including the importance of self-awareness.

Creative Writing

Course	Description
Introduction to creative writing	Develop your creative writing skills as you explore poetry, fiction and scriptwriting.

Digital Marketing

Course	Description
Introduction to digital marketing	Build core digital marketing skills and knowledge to plan and implement first-class digital campaigns.
Digital marketing content creation	Gain the practical skills to create effective online content that engages your audience and delivers business objectives.
Email marketing eCRM	Learn how to build high-performing email marketing campaigns, from targeting the right audience to email analytics and analysis.
Online display advertising	Gain the skills to create, manage and optimise successful online display advertising campaigns that deliver results.
Search marketing	Unlock the skills needed to make effective use of search engine optimisation and paid search in your marketing campaigns.
Social media marketing	Accelerate your social media marketing skills across a range of channels, measure your success, and optimise your approach.
Digital marketing analytics and measurement	Learn to use web and channel analytics to plan, implement and optimise effective digital marketing campaigns.
Digital marketing strategy	Learn how to plan and build an effective digital marketing strategy using PR Smith’s SOSTAC® framework.

Digital Transformation

Course	Description
Introduction to digital transformation	Learn how digital transformation works and the factors that impact an organisation’s successful transformation.
Digital transformation foundations	Understand the core building blocks that are essential for successful digital transformation.
Digital transformation readiness	Discover how to implement strategic initiatives and develop your organisation’s readiness to transform.
Digital transformation performance	Drive the performance of your digital transformation through measurement, innovation, iteration, and continuous improvement.
Digital transformation design thinking	Learn how to use design thinking to improve decision-making, solve problems, and foster innovation as part of digital transformation.
Data in digital transformation	Explore the role of data, artificial intelligence (AI), and the principles of data science for digital transformation.

Film, Media and Photography

Course	Description
Digital photography	Broaden your photography skills with a course produced with The Royal Photographic Society (RPS).
Storytelling with video editing	Learn the basics of video editing through a series of practical activities using Adobe Premiere Pro.

Law

Course	Description
Foundations of UK immigration law (OISC Level 1)	Explore the skills and knowledge expected of an OISC Level 1 Immigration Adviser.
Advanced UK immigration law (OISC Levels 2 and 3)	Learn more about UK immigration law and develop the skills to work at OISC Levels 2 and 3.

See all Open University short courses.

Microcredentials may also interest you

These are courses with academic credit, designed to quickly build in-demand skills and knowledge in leadership and business management, digital technologies, sustainability, and more.

Find out about Microcredentials

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