Staff Skills academy+

What it is

Staff Skills academy+ is an online staff training platform for UK organizations: a learning management system that comes loaded with 750+ ready-made courses covering compliance, health and safety, professional development and wellbeing. It is aimed at the people who run training inside a company, and the FAQ names them as HR professionals managing compliance and onboarding, L&D managers building learning strategies, and business leaders working on team performance. The same course library is also sold as SCORM packages for organizations that already run another LMS. The home page counts 1.3m+ people trained, 20+ course categories, and 1000+ SMEs, public sector and enterprise organizations that trust it with staff training. The platform is part of Academy Plus Group Ltd, which trades as academy+, and the SCORM page says the content is developed in-house in the UK with input from real organizations.

What a user actually gets

The platform is organized into three hubs. The Course hub holds the 750+ CPD-certified courses and comes with both the Essential and Plus+ packages. The Wellbeing hub offers on-demand wellbeing resources, including fitness from Les Mills and mindfulness classes, and is also part of Essential and Plus+. The Performance hub, with resources meant to change behavior and build high-performing teams, is available only with Plus+. The course categories run from Administration and HR, Business, Care and Compliance to Education and Teaching, Health and Safety, Hospitality and Tourism, IT and Computing, Mental Health and Wellness, Professional Development, and Sales and Customer Service, with cybersecurity listed separately in the menu.

The compliance library is the core for this category. The FAQ lists GDPR, health and safety, safeguarding, equality, diversity and inclusion, fire safety and industry-specific mandatory training, aligned with UK legislation where applicable. The popular courses on the home page give a sense of length: Manual Handling Certification and Martyn's Law and Emergency Preparedness Certification run 1.5 hours each, GDPR in The Workplace and Basic Fire Safety Awareness 2 hours, COSHH Awareness 3 hours, and Essential Health and Safety in the Workplace (UK) 4 hours. Two safeguarding children courses sit in the Care category, one including disabilities and one including KCSIE updates, and the Business category reaches as far as AI for Beginners and two 9-hour Excel courses.

Courses mix video, text, tests, worksheets with open questions and interactive word games, and learners can write and store notes in their own profile. The SCORM page adds scenario-based videos, podcasts, interactive skills challenges and microlearning modules. The LMS works on desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones, and on Windows, Android and Mac. For in-person delivery, the company offers instructor-led courses through a network of 600+ expert trainers across the UK, alongside bespoke training listed in the menu.

For administrators, the home page lists single sign-on, automated enrollment and reminders, real-time reporting dashboards, downloadable compliance evidence, a custom course builder and a compliance matrix. The FAQ says courses can be assigned in minutes, pre-built learning pathways cover compliance, performance and wellbeing, and reports track completion rates, employee progress, compliance status and engagement. It claims most organizations cut training administration from hours per week to almost zero. The course builder accepts existing content, including SCORM files, so internal and external training can sit in the same pathways. The platform supports integration with internal systems, so courses, user access and compliance can be managed alongside existing HR processes. Onboarding is guided: the FAQ says most organizations are running within a few days, with setup support, help building the learning structure and a dedicated account manager.

SCORM, pricing and support

The SCORM route lets an organization keep its own LMS. The SCORM page lists compatibility with SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004, a choice of a single course, a bundle or the full library, and tracking of completions, assessment scores and learner progress in the buyer's own reporting tools. Content updates and version control are included within the license terms, wellbeing resources are an optional add-on, and access terms run 12, 24 or 36 months. The pricing models listed are pay per course, unlimited access across the organization, and annual or multi-year licenses, with a price match guarantee on equivalent CPD-certified SCORM packages. The one published figure is that SCORM packages start from £295 + VAT; prices for the Essential and Plus+ LMS packages are given through a quote.

The FAQ states that all courses are CPD-certified and that some carry additional certifications from RoSPA and the Complementary Medical Association.

There is a 14-day free trial of the LMS with the 750+ Course hub courses, for the account holder and two colleagues, with no credit card and no obligations, and a personalized demo can be booked instead. Support is offered 24/7 by email, online chat and telephone. Two free extras sit beside the paid product: HR academy+, a free platform with CPD-certified courses for HR and L&D leaders and managers, and the Sound Advice podcast.

Clients quoted on the home page include James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, Darlington College, Teens Unite, Cumbernauld Community Learning Centre and Unite Wales Union Learning Fund. Claire James of the bakers' union says learners described the platform as "easier to use than expected", and credits the learner experience, cost-effectiveness and "fantastic technical support" for keeping her organization as a client.

Who it suits and who it does not

The clearest fit is a UK SME, charity, college, union learning fund or public body that needs mandatory training covered and tracked without building a course library: GDPR, safeguarding, fire safety, manual handling and health and safety are all ready, and the compliance matrix and downloadable evidence answer an inspector's questions. An NHS trust or larger employer can add development and wellbeing content for staff who want to progress, and Plus+ brings the Performance hub for managers. Organizations that already have an LMS can buy just the SCORM content on a 12 to 36 month term, and the price match guarantee helps when comparing CPD-certified packages.

The caveats are mostly about fit. The content is aligned with UK legislation, so an organization training staff under other countries' rules will find much of the compliance library less relevant. Most courses on the popular list run one and a half to four hours, which suits awareness and refresher training better than deep study. And beyond the £295 SCORM starting point, budgeting the full LMS needs a quote.