Bringing business and education together to tackle the region’s skills gap.

Skills West Midlands and Warwickshire is working to reshape the region’s skills system, making it more responsive to the needs of local businesses. Our approach focuses on increasing collaboration between businesses and training providers, giving employers a platform to specify their training needs and simplifying the process of searching for skills initiatives. By strengthening this relationship, we are aligning skills provision more closely with shortages in the labour market, equipping the workforce with the skills needed to drive innovation and community prosperity.

Our purpose is to support the delivery of the region’s Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP), an actionable strategy for transforming the skills system that draws on the insights of different regional stakeholders, training providers and over a thousand local businesses.

One of main challenges identified by the plan was a lack of awareness from employers of the training support available from further education providers. By bringing providers from across the region together in a single place, we aim to streamline the process of finding high-quality training.

Using our platform, businesses can search for programmes, communicate directly with providers to learn more about their services and access a range of case studies and user-submitted reviews, allowing employers to make the most informed decision when selecting a training partner.

The skills landscape is always changing, requiring training providers to regularly review courses and programmes to ensure they continue to meet the needs of local employers.

Drawing on the insights gleaned from employer consultation, we are working to improve the content and delivery of skills initiatives in line with the priority areas identified by the LSIP.

Our work puts employers at the heart of the skills agenda, giving them a direct say in training provision so that the region’s skills system reflects and responds to labour market demand.

To improve the provision of skills across the region, we work closely with businesses and training providers, while also supporting individual learners with careers resources and employment opportunities.

For businesses, our role is to simplify the process of finding training and skills initiatives by allowing employers to browse and communicate with different training providers. We also work directly with training providers, offering a platform to share training programmes and courses.