Education Insights
Empowering Education with Labor-Market Intelligence
In today’s rapidly evolving knowledge economy, educational institutions and learner-focused organizations must stay closely aligned with real employer demand and labor-market trends. When programs are built around up-to-date workforce insights, institutions strengthen regional economies, improve learner outcomes, and create pathways to meaningful career opportunities.
Lightcast APIs make that alignment possible. With clear labor-market insights, skills intelligence, and demand data, you can build market-ready programs and guide learners toward careers that support long-term growth and prosperity.
1. Employer Demand
Understanding employer demand is central to developing programs that lead to meaningful employment. Our Lightcast APIs give you access to real-time job market insights as well as forward-looking projections.
Key employer demand APIs
| APIs | Description |
|---|---|
| Job Postings API | Track real-time job postings, including required skills, certifications, and job titles. |
| Projected Occupation Growth & Projected Skill Growth | Identify which occupations and skills are expected to grow over the next decade. |
| Core LMI API & Market Salary API | Analyze wages and salary trends by occupation, industry, region, or level of experience. |
| Skills API | Prioritize skills by importance and identify the capabilities that differentiate top graduates. |
These insights help institutions understand where employer needs are emerging, declining, or accelerating and how to respond strategically.
2. Education
With labor-market demand as a foundation, educators can design and evaluate programs that meet real workforce needs.
Lightcast APIs enables
- Program Evaluation and Market Alignment
- Skill Tagging and Curriculum Mapping
- Clear Program-to-Career Pathways
These capabilities help institutions improve program quality, support accreditation processes, and drive enrollment through transparent outcomes.
3. Learner Potential
Traditional learners or career-switchers need actionable information to make confident decisions. Lightcast APIs support personalized and data-driven guidance.
Key learner-focused APIs
| APIs | Description |
|---|---|
| Career Coach | Provide tailored career recommendations based on skills, interests, and local labor-market demand. |
| Career Pathways | Help learners understand What can I do next? by mapping their current skills to future opportunities. |
| Salary Boosting Skills | Identify skills that offer the strongest wage growth potential so learners can upskill strategically. |
Together, these tools empower learners to explore, plan, and progress-improving outcomes at both the individual and institutional levels.
Use Cases
Below are common scenarios demonstrating how institutions use Lightcast APIs to support curriculum development, program planning, accreditation, learner guidance, and market intelligence.
Curriculum Planning
Our APIs help your institution make data-driven program decisions. Use labor-market demand and graduate-supply insights to identify which programs to build, update, promote, or scale. You can compare regional demand for occupations and skills with the programs you offer to uncover gaps. By tagging your programs with relevant skills, you can see where current curricula do not align with market needs and identify opportunities to adjust or repurpose existing offerings to close those gaps.
Skill Classification for Learning Outcomes
Upload curriculum or course materials, extract the raw skills they contain, and classify them against the Lightcast Skills Taxonomy to understand the skills your learning outcomes represent.
APIs Used
- Authentication
- Classification - To classify the raw skills into Lightcast Skills Taxonomy.
Python Example
Classify Which Skills Are In Your Learning Outcomes
Description:
In this example we show the process of uploading a file and extracting raw skills from it, and then classifying it to the Lightcast Skills Taxonomy.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - To classify raw skills into to our Lightcast Skills Taxonomy
Python Example:
Identify Which LOT or SOC Occupation a CIP Maps To
Description:
In this example we show how to pick a CIP and LOT versions and then map the LOT/SOC version of the identified CIPs.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - To classify CIP codes to Lightcast Occupational Taxonomies (LOT) or Standard Occupation Code (SOC).
Python Example:
Understand the Projected Growth for an Occupation
Description:
In this example we set a CIP standard and then map those to the Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT) version, and then use that LOT in our Projected Occupational Growth API.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - Classify to the Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT) version
- Projected Occupation Growth
Python Example:
Understand Enrollments and Completions for Your School and Other Benchmark Schools
Description:
In this example we are listing out the metrics for "Computer Science" graduates in 2023.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- CoreLMI - Our government data APIs.
Python Example:
What Skills Will Grow the Most?
Description:
In this example we are using CIP codes, mapping them to Lightcast Skills Taxonomy, and then using Job Postings and Projected Skill Growth APIs to find the top skills by occupation.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - To map CIP codes to our Lightcast Skills Taxonomy
- Job Postings - US
- Projected Skill Growth
Python Example:
Which Skills Will Boost ROI for Graduates?
Description:
In this example we are taking a CIP code, mapping it to the Lightcast Occupation Taxonomy (LOT), and then finding the skills that will increase salaries by LOT.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - To map CIP codes to our Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT)
- Salary Boosting Skills
Python Example:
Understand Which Occupations are Likely to Have Better Wages and ROI for Graduates
Description:
In this example we are taking a CIP code, mapping it to our Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT), and then using our Market Salary API to return salaries by occupation.
APIs Used:
-
Classification - To classify CIP codes into to our Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT)
-
ry]
Python
Python Example:
Career Coach
One of our most popular products has been Career Coach. It help learners discover careers and education pathways. It gives learners a single platform for career and academic exploration.
- Interest assessment for undecided students or those exploring a new career
- Skills inventory for learners looking to explore careers that match their existing skill set
- Guided career exploration based on interests, skill sets, or keyword search
- Recommended educational offerings that align with a learner’s target career
- Local job postings + vetted opportunities with your industry partners
The platform can be installed as a widget, but we also offer the APIs for an even more seamless integration into your platform.
Reproduce the Career Coach Widget
Description:
In this example we show the process of leveraging the APIs directly to reproduce what the Career Coach widget does.
APIs Used:
Python Example:
In today’s knowledge economy, aligning educational offerings with real-world employer needs is crucial. It helps align higher education institutions, as well as all organizations serving learners, in the larger educational ecosystem for individual career outcomes. The more aligned higher education institutions are with employer needs, the more significant they are as economic engines. Our Lightcast APIs unlock a data-driven ecosystem where workforce trends inform program strategy, curricular content maps directly to in-demand skills, and learners receive personalized guidance on personally relevant paths to prosperity.
- Employer Demand
Understanding employer demand is the foundation for any successful academic program or workforce initiative. With the Lightcast Job Postings API, institutions can track not only the volume of current openings but also the precise skills employers are seeking. Layered on top of this real-time snapshot, our Projected Occupation Growth and Projected Skill Growth APIs reveal which roles and competencies will be most critical over the next five to ten years. The Core LMI API and Market Salary API enable education to understand wages and salaries by role, industry, and city or county. Finally, the Defining, Distinguishing, and Necessary (DDN) Skills API classifies every skill by its importance—helping you distinguish foundational proficiencies from those that truly set graduates apart in a competitive marketplace. - Education Solutions
Armed with employer insights, educational leaders can perform market-informed program evaluations and design new curricula that address actual labor-market gaps. You can tag course and program content with Lightcast skill identifiers (using Lightcast Classification API), to skill map your institution's offerings at every educational level—whether it’s a microcredential, certificate, or full degree. Additionally, prospective students and institutional researchers alike can see which occupations and outcomes each program leads to. - Learner Potential
For traditional learners, the Career Coach APIs provide personalized data-driven guidance about potential careers. For adult learners, maybe they can’t handle getting “another degree” - but they want to upskill to progress their career. The Lightcast Career Pathways API can help them understand “Where can I go next?” and even help them understand the most crucial skills they need to upskill to get to their desired career. Lightcast’s Salary Boosting Skills API allows them to target specific skills that drive the highest salaries. Together, these tools empower every student and adult learner to plan, upskill, and succeed—creating prosperity at both the personal and institutional levels.
Popular Use Cases
Curriculum Development, Enhancement, Evaluation, Accreditation
Our APIs can be used to guide your institution in which programs to build, refine, market more, invest in more or less, by helping you understand which occupations and skills your region needs education for most based on demand and supply. Understand the supply of graduates by program in your region to see where the gaps are. An advanced approach allows you to skill tag all of your programs to understand where your gaps are from what is taught to what is sought and growing in the marketplace. It also allows you to see how you could quickly fill gaps using existing offerings.
Classify Which Skills Are In Your Learning Outcomes
Description:
In this example we show the process of uploading a file and extracting raw skills from it, and then classifying it to the Lightcast Skills Taxonomy.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - To classify raw skills into to our Lightcast Skills Taxonomy
Python Example:
Identify Which LOT or SOC Occupation a CIP Maps To
Description:
In this example we show how to pick a CIP and LOT versions and then map the LOT/SOC version of the identified CIPs.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - To classify CIP codes to Lightcast Occupational Taxonomies (LOT) or Standard Occupation Code (SOC).
Python Example:
Understand the Projected Growth for an Occupation
Description:
In this example we set a CIP standard and then map those to the Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT) version, and then use that LOT in our Projected Occupational Growth API.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - Classify to the Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT) version
- Projected Occupation Growth
Python Example:
Understand Enrollments and Completions for Your School and Other Benchmark Schools
Description:
In this example we are listing out the metrics for "Computer Science" graduates in 2023.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- CoreLMI - Our government data APIs.
Python Example:
What Skills Will Grow the Most?
Description:
In this example we are using CIP codes, mapping them to Lightcast Skills Taxonomy, and then using Job Postings and Projected Skill Growth APIs to find the top skills by occupation.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - To map CIP codes to our Lightcast Skills Taxonomy
- Job Postings - US
- Projected Skill Growth
Python Example:
Which Skills Will Boost ROI for Graduates?
Description:
In this example we are taking a CIP code, mapping it to the Lightcast Occupation Taxonomy (LOT), and then finding the skills that will increase salaries by LOT.
APIs Used:
- Authentication
- Classification - To map CIP codes to our Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT)
- Salary Boosting Skills
Python Example:
Understand Which Occupations are Likely to Have Better Wages and ROI for Graduates
Description:
In this example we are taking a CIP code, mapping it to our Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT), and then using our Market Salary API to return salaries by occupation.
APIs Used:
-
Classification - To classify CIP codes into to our Lightcast Occupational Taxonomy (LOT)
-
ry]
Python
Python Example:
Career Coach
One of our most popular products has been Career Coach. It help learners discover careers and education pathways. It gives learners a single platform for career and academic exploration.
- Interest assessment for undecided students or those exploring a new career
- Skills inventory for learners looking to explore careers that match their existing skill set
- Guided career exploration based on interests, skill sets, or keyword search
- Recommended educational offerings that align with a learner’s target career
- Local job postings + vetted opportunities with your industry partners
The platform can be installed as a widget, but we also offer the APIs for an even more seamless integration into your platform.
Reproduce the Career Coach Widget
Description:
In this example we show the process of leveraging the APIs directly to reproduce what the Career Coach widget does.
APIs Used:
Python Example:
Updated 7 days ago