During the last nine months, the Business Support Team from Warwickshire Skills Hub has been hosting Industry Round Tables as part of the Future Skills Programme which provides skills support for businesses in new and emerging technologies.

To date the Skills Hub, which is part of Warwickshire County Council, has held round tables for the Games Developers, Digital Creative, Automotive & Aerospace (Design & Engineering), Automotive & Aerospace (Manufacturing Tier 1 -3) and Logistics. Planned for later this year are Automotive & Aerospace (OEMs) and Construction. 

Working closely with partners and employers across this sector helps the team to identify key skills trends and emerging themes, pinpoint what the jobs of the future will look like and assess exactly what kind of business skills support is needed. Based on the information received from businesses, the Skills Hub feeds back to their educators and training providers, helping to align careers provision across Warwickshire and provide integrated and co-ordinated access to skills and employment support for the county's businesses.

Louise Stolz, Future Skills Business Support Advisor at Warwickshire Skills Hub, said: "As a result of feedback from our round tables so far, we have added a page around CV Writing to the Warwickshire Skills Hub website with links to helpful resources, as we're hearing that the standard of CVs is generally very poor. We have also learnt that young people entering today's job market have poor soft skills and we have fed this back to our local educators and training providers and asked them to add a module around employability to all their courses. 

"Many of the businesses we have met with so far are keen to do more around school engagement and create stronger links with our local universities so we already have dates in the diary for follow up meetings where we have invited Warwickshire Careers Hub and the universities of Coventry & Warwick, to explain how this can be achieved. This work is helping to shape real activity to improve the skills and future talent supply chain in our county."