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Historical Skill Trends API Guide

Track how specific skills are trending over time based on job ad demand — supporting smarter upskilling, hiring, and workforce planning.

This API helps workforce strategy, analytics, and HR teams understand which capabilities are gaining traction or fading, so you can adjust learning and recruitment strategies accordingly.

Who is this API for?

This API is ideal for teams focused on workforce evolution and market-aligned capability planning. In particular:

  • People Analyst – monitor how real-world demand for specific skills changes over time

  • People Strategist – align workforce strategy to long-term capability trends

  • Workforce Planner – model future gaps by reviewing past and present skill dynamics

  • Talent Recruiter – identify when to refresh hiring criteria based on skill relevance

Goals this API helps you achieve

The Historical Skill Trends API directly supports:

  • Explore workforce market trends across specific skills

  • Track monthly and long-term trends in job ad demand

  • Detect seasonal, cyclical, or structural changes in skill importance

  • Compare demand patterns to shape learning or hiring strategy

What’s included in this API?

The API returns monthly and rolling 12-month frequency data for any skill in Pearson’s Ontology, showing how often that skill is mentioned in job ads over time.

Field Description
skill_name Name of the skill you’re tracking
job_ad_mentions Count of mentions per 1M job ads (monthly)
rolling_12_months Rolling average of job ad mentions across the past 12 months
country Market context (e.g., US, AU, UK)
analysis_period Customizable timeframe for your analysis (default is last 3 years)

📊 Output options include a line chart view (monthly vs. rolling trend), downloadable CSV, and table format.

Input and Output

Input required:

  • Skill name or ID from Pearson’s Ontology

Optional:

  • Country

  • Analysis period (default: last 3 years)

Output includes:

  • Monthly frequency of skill mentions in job postings (per million)

  • Rolling 12-month average

  • Visual trend chart or raw data

Real-world applications

Teams are using this API to:

  • Identify whether a skill is emerging, declining, or stabilizing

  • Justify changes to learning content or hiring frameworks

  • Report on skill demand to stakeholders or executives

  • Inform workforce capability modelling with real-time demand signals

API Bundles

This API is available in the following bundles:

  • Industry Labour Market Trend
    For macro skill trends across industries and occupations.

  • Skill Analysis & Development
    For learning, talent strategy, and organizational planning.