Building stronger connections between businesses and education to tackle the region’s skills gap.

At Skills West Midlands + Warwickshire (Skills WM+W), our fundamental approach is to reshape the regional skills system, making it highly responsive to the evolving needs of your business. We recognise the critical importance of a skilled workforce for your growth and the overall prosperity of our community.

Our core objective is to simplify your access to targeted skills development and align training provisions directly with local labour market demands. We achieve this by fostering robust collaborations between businesses and training providers, including our local colleges. This partnership ensures that the training available directly addresses skills shortages, drives innovation, and contributes to the economic vitality of the West Midlands and Warwickshire.

• Tailored Solutions for Your Needs: We provide a dedicated platform where your business can specify its unique training requirements. This allows you to easily search for and identify skills initiatives that precisely match your needs, strengthening the direct relationship between your organisation and training providers.

• Supporting the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP): Our approach is integral to the delivery of the region’s Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP). Developed through extensive engagement with regional stakeholders, training providers, and over a thousand local businesses, the LSIP identified a critical need for greater awareness among employers regarding available training support. We address this by consolidating information from providers in one accessible location, streamlining your search for high-quality training.

• Informed Decision-Making: Our platform empowers you to search for relevant programmes, communicate directly with training providers, and access valuable case studies and user reviews. This comprehensive information enables you to make confident and informed decisions about your staff training investments.

• Agile and Responsive Development: We operate with agility, recognising that the skills landscape is constantly evolving. By continuously drawing on employer consultations, we work to refine the content and delivery of skills initiatives. This ensures that the regional skills system, delivered through local colleges and other providers, remains current and directly reflects the demands of the labour market, particularly within the LSIP’s priority areas.

• Simplified Training Access: We collaborate extensively with businesses, training providers, and individual learners. For your business, our primary focus is to simplify the entire process of finding and implementing the right training programmes to upskill your workforce. We act as your central resource for connecting with local colleges who are ready to support your talent development goals.

By engaging with our approach, you can effectively leverage the expertise and resources of local colleges and training providers to enhance your workforce capabilities, secure a competitive edge, and contribute to the region’s economic strength.

We invite you to explore our directory to connect with certified training providers and discover how local colleges can be your strategic partner in workforce development. For further inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us directly.