The Warwickshire Skills Hub celebrates two years of success

"Our approach to collaborative working ensures that our service and support continuously evolve and, most importantly, remain relevant and reflective of local needs."

Warwickshire Skills Hub hit the ground running when it was created early in 2020.

Two years on, it is still full steam ahead on its mission to create a well-skilled population that meets the evolving needs of the county's businesses, education providers and communities.

The Warwickshire Skills Hub is the home of Warwickshire County Council's Employability and Skills team headed by Lead Commissioner for Employability and Skills, Fay Winterburn.

Fay’s team consists of talented Careers, Skills and Projects Officers who are thriving in roles where creativity is key and every team member plays their own important part in the development and delivery of the Skills Hub work.

It's objective upon its launch was to create a dedicated and collaborative space to “Innovate, Shape and Create” a wide variety of skills services and programmes with other county teams and skills partners.

“I’m incredibly proud of the team's achievements since our launch in 2020,” said Fay. "The growth in our team and the significant increase in our offer of support is quite often in partnership with organisations such as the Department for Work and Pensions, The Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and many more.

"Our approach to collaborative working ensures that our service and support continuously evolve and, most importantly, remain relevant and reflective of local needs."

The evidence so far shows that the team's work has proved highly effective and is playing a significant role in helping employers find and cultivate the skills they need at a complex and challenging time due to the pandemic. The Skills Hub attracts plenty of interaction from businesses, partners and education who all share a passion to make Warwickshire the best it can be.

In its first two years, Warwickshire Skills Hub has:

*  engaged with 600 businesses to provide support in gaining the skills needed to thrive in Warwickshire

*  created 268 apprenticeships across a wide variety of sectors

*  funded £600,000 of apprenticeships

*  safeguarded 115 jobs through re-skilling staff

*   supported 8,925 Warwickshire students with careers or further education activity

*   created 30 Careers Films created to showcase Warwickshire employers

Based at the county council's Eliot Park Innovation Centre in Nuneaton, the Skills Hub continues to power a wide range of projects including:

Fully Funded Business Skills Reviews

Fully Funded Fair Chance Employer Programme

Warwickshire Apprenticeship funding and support

Funded Future Careers Filming

Warwickshire County Council leader Cllr Izzi Seccombe said: "Warwickshire Skills Hub is a real success story. It was created to deliver the maximum support for businesses and education-providers from our excellent Skills team and that is exactly what it has done and continues to do.

"The energy, creativity and sheer hard work of Fay and her team to promote opportunities for our young people is truly inspiring. More than ever, after the last two years, the creation and maintaining of a skilled workforce is vital to a strong Warwickshire economy, so it is fantastic that we have such a great team on the case."