What are Skills Bootcamps?
Skills Bootcamps give people aged 19+ the opportunity to build up sector specific skills through fully-funded and co-funded flexible courses of up to 16 weeks. After completing the training, participants will fast track to a guaranteed interview with a local employer.
The key objectives are to:
- support adults from diverse groups to retrain and;
- help employers to fill skills shortages
Between 2018 and 2021 GMCA worked with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Lancashire Digital Skills Partnership and the Department of Education to deliver the £5.9m Fast Track Digital Workforce Fund, which was developed to address locally identified digital skills gaps and support residents with accessible routes into digital employment, fast tracking them to an interview with a local employer.
The Fund laid the foundation for the Skills Bootcamps and acted as a pilot to test the funding and delivery model. The pilot’s success led to the roll out of Skills Bootcamps nationally as part of the National Skills Fund.
GMCA has secured £7m in the latest round of funding (April 2022) to deliver Skills Bootcamps across a range of industries in Greater Manchester over the next year.
Around £4.5m of this total is earmarked for supporting people to improve digital skills across all sectors, as this is a gap consistently identified across the city-region as businesses adapt following Covid-19.
Year one of the bootcamps will support 2,500 people working (or wanting to work) within the below industries, which are aligned with those highlighted in our Local Industrial Strategy (PDF, 1.5MB):
- Digital/Technology
- Construction & Green Skills
- Advanced Manufacturing
- Logistics & HGV
GMCA is committed to better joining up to the post-19 skills system so people who live and work here have access to better opportunities and businesses can benefit from a high-quality, local talent pool to support economic growth.
It is hoped that this programme will continue over the next three years (to March 2025) and GMCA will seek further funding from DfE annually to make this happen.
Check out the latest Skills Bootcamps video. Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity to level up your skills!