The Heart of the South West LEP Digital Skills Partnership is launching free Digital and Technical Bootcamps to help adults develop in demand skills that lead to higher-paid roles within in-demand sectors.
The bootcamps also benefit businesses by providing training developed by industry for areas that labour market intelligence has highlighted as being hampered by skills shortages.
Funded by the Department for Education’s National Skills Fund, this new training programme is delivered by the HotSW Digital Skills Partnership with the support of a growing set of partners including Babcock, Bluescreen IT, Bridgwater & Taunton College, Cosmic, Exeter College, Focus Training Group, South Devon College, The Learning People and Train4All.
The Digital and Technical Bootcamps offer adults aged 19+ free, high quality, digital and technical training designed by industry to meet their open and live vacancies. The bootcamps are recruiting now, ready to begin in January, have been designed for people out of work, returning to work, or in-work who are looking to advance their skills into industries that are set to grow or are resilient to the current economic downturn.
With ten different bootcamps to choose from, there are opportunities to move into cyber, data science, software, digital marketing, IT, digital for healthcare, welding, photonics, engineering, construction or electronics for renewables or automotive. The training is completely free and comes with a guaranteed interview for everyone completing the bootcamp.
To encourage diversity and inclusion, the bootcamps have been designed to offer a range of learning modes, in a range of locations – including online – and range from requiring between 5 to 25 hours a week. It is hoped bootcamps will appeal to people out of work, those who are in-work and released for study as well as people studying alongside a current job looking to retrain. Delivery partners are actively looking to raise awareness of the bootcamps and encourage participation from individuals with protected characteristics such as a disability; those who are neuro-diverse or MOD re-settlers.
HotSW Digital Skills Partnership Manager, Charlotte Collyer said:
“This is an incredible opportunity for people across the Heart of the South West to be part of the early pilot wave of Digital and Technical Bootcamps that will inform a wider, national roll-out from the Department of Education next year. The bootcamps offer a fantastic range of digital and technical specialisms that match to live vacancies in our area; delivered by some of the best regional and national training providers to help people move into a new career in 2021.â€
HotSW LEP Chair, Karl Tucker, said: “It’s more important now than ever that our business community and workforce steps up to the skills challenge to help businesses recover from the impact of COVID19.
“Digital Skills are key to the success of the economy in the Heart of the South West, and by rolling out these exciting new bootcamps, we can help deliver the training that people need to gain high value careers and raise prosperity for all.â€
Digital and Technical Bootcamps are open for registration now by visiting skillslaunchpad.org.uk/skills/skills-launch-digital-and-technical-bootcamps/
