Build CPD content in-house when it changes faster than a supplier could turn it round and your education team already has a designer with the hours to give it. Outsource the build when the course is assessed, has a date it must launch by, or needs skills your team uses once a year, and keep the standard, the subject experts, the member relationship and ownership of the content in-house whichever way you go.
That is the short answer for a Head of Education or Director of CPD at a professional body. The longer answer is in the market data, because the latest annual survey of what organisations keep in-house and what they buy was published on 7 November 2026.
What are other organisations doing in 2026?
Training magazine published its 2026 Training Industry Report on 7 November 2026. It draws on 263 US organisations with 100 or more employees, surveyed between April and July 2026. Total US training expenditure rose 5.5 percent to $108.5 billion. Inside that total, spending on outside products and services fell 37.5 percent to $10 billion, while the category that includes in-house training development, travel, facilities and equipment jumped from $22.1 billion to $32.9 billion. An average of 6 percent of the training budget went on outsourcing, down from 7 percent in 2025, and the average outsourcing spend fell 22 percent to $168,658.
That looks like learning coming back in-house. Look closer at what organisations keep in-house and it is the running of learning: 87 percent of organisations handle learner support in-house and 83 percent handle LMS administration in-house. Instruction and facilitation is the exception, with 61 percent outsourced against 39 percent handled in-house. And the training suppliers surveyed in the same report named custom content as the category where outsourcing grew most, with 43 percent saying it increased, while 31 percent of organisations named content development as a planned purchase, against 17 percent a year earlier.
So the 2026 pattern is not in-house versus outsourced. It is: keep the operation, buy the build. The same report shows why the operation is easier to keep than it was: 50 percent of organisations now use rapid eLearning tools, up from 42 percent, and 49 percent use artificial intelligence tools, up from 37 percent.
These are US corporations and educational institutions, not professional bodies. A body faces the same split, usually with a far smaller team and a membership that notices every error, so the logic applies with more force rather than less.
We have a small education team. Can they build it?
For some content, yes, and they probably should. Regulatory updates, technical bulletins, a short briefing on a changed standard: content that changes every quarter and carries no assessment is better built by the people closest to it, with a rapid authoring tool, than sent out and back.
The honest test is not talent but hours. When the Association for Talent Development surveyed learning professionals on development time in autumn 2020, 67 percent of the 112 who completed the survey named limited resources, meaning time, talent and money, as the most frequent barrier to producing content faster. Scope creep, a lack of standardised processes or templates, and the availability of subject matter experts and stakeholders were each named by between 34 and 39 percent. A team that keeps a CPD programme current, answers members and runs the events calendar has a day job. A course build is a project, and a project done in the gaps of a day job tends to arrive late and thin.
A workable rule of thumb: if the content will be rewritten within a year, build it in-house. If it will be assessed, or run largely unchanged for three years or more, treat it as a build and decide who the builder is.
What does outsourcing actually buy us?
Not the subject knowledge. That stays with you. What outsourcing buys is the set of skills a body uses rarely: scenario and assessment design, media production, plain English editing, accessibility work, and a fixed delivery date with a named person accountable for it. It also buys capacity: the build happens without the education team pausing the work only they can do.
Either way, there is a cost that never appears on a quote: your experts’ review time. The body’s subject matter experts read every draft, and that review cycle is the body’s own cost. Budget for it as if it were a line item, because it is. One more thing to put in the brief: the measure of success. The Association for Talent Development’s summary of its 2026 State of the Industry report, published on 11 May 2026 and drawn from 340 organisations, says fewer than a quarter measure whether their training achieved its organisational goals. A build brief that states the measure on page one is a simple fix for that, whoever does the building. The questions to ask a supplier before you commit are covered in our earlier article on how to choose a custom eLearning company.
Which parts should stay in-house whichever way we go?
Four things.
The standard: the statement of what a competent member must be able to do after the CPD, written and owned by the body. The subject experts: the people who know the profession, and who sign off the content. The member relationship: who members hear from, where they log in, and whose data it is. And ownership of the content itself, including the source files, written into the contract so that the body can update or move the course without going back to the builder.
If those four stay inside, the body remains the author of its own CPD whoever assembled it. If any of them goes out, the body has not outsourced a build, it has outsourced its standard.
The decision in one table
| Question to ask | Points to in-house | Points to outsourcing |
|---|---|---|
| How often will the content change? | Quarterly or faster | Yearly or slower |
| Is it assessed, or does it count towards a credential? | No | Yes |
| Is there a launch date the body cannot move? | No | Yes |
| Does it need scenarios, media or assessment design? | No, a briefing will do | Yes |
| Does the team have the hours this quarter without dropping member work? | Yes | No |
| How much will the body build this year? | A handful of short briefings | A full course, or a whole CPD programme |
| Who must own the standard, the experts and the source files? | The body | The body, written into the contract |
Most bodies that work through the table land on a hybrid: standards, experts and sign-off inside; design, build and media outside; the running of the course back inside once it is live. That is also the broad pattern in the 2026 data.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between outsourcing CPD content and buying off-the-shelf CPD?
Outsourcing means a supplier builds content to your standard, from your experts, and the contract can make the finished course yours. Off-the-shelf means licensing a finished course that already exists and that other organisations also use.
How much of their training budget do organisations spend on outsourcing?
An average of 6 percent in 2026, down from 7 percent in 2025, according to Training magazine’s 2026 Training Industry Report of 263 US organisations, published on 7 November 2026.
Who owns the content if a professional body outsources the build?
Whoever the contract says. A body should write ownership of the finished course and its source files into the agreement before the build starts, so it can update or move the course later without returning to the builder.
Can a body outsource the build and still keep its CPD standard in-house?
Yes, and it should. The standard, the subject experts, the sign-off and the member relationship stay with the body. The supplier contributes design, production and a delivery date.
Do AI authoring tools make building CPD in-house easier?
They lower the production barrier for short, fast-changing content. They do not design the scenarios or assessments, and that work still needs people who know the profession and know assessment.
What LearnFrame builds for professional bodies
LearnFrame, in Dublin, Ireland, builds custom CPD programmes for professional bodies, certification bodies and regulated training providers in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Europe and internationally. The body keeps its standard, its experts and its members. We design and build the course, to a date, and hand it over for your team to run.
Our own CPD programme, AI for Professional Practice, can be licensed by a body under its own name. Module 1 is open to anyone; for the other four modules, contact us. Each member who completes Module 1 leaves a record of the decisions they made in the scenarios, which the body can read. You can see what that record looks like at learnframe.com/ai-in-practice-record.
If you want a second opinion on where your own content falls in the table, ask us.
Sources: Training magazine, 2026 Training Industry Report, published 7 November 2026 (trainingmag.com). Association for Talent Development, "How Long Does It Take to Develop Training? New Question, New Answers", Robyn A. Defelice, 13 January 2021 (td.org). Association for Talent Development, "Highlights From ATD’s 2026 State of the Industry Report", 11 May 2026 (the measurement finding) (td.org). See more insights from LearnFrame.