NORTH-east educational establishments have joined forces with some of Scotland’s digital training providers in an effort to boost the region’s digital capabilities.
It is hoped The Future Skills Partnership, which is being spearheaded by Opportunity North East (ONE), will help the region keep pace with the country’s other major cities in digital maturity and adoption.
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The University of Aberdeen, Robert Gordon University and North East Scotland College have partnered with Code Clan, The Data Lab and Skills Development Scotland to launch a web portal providing individuals looking to further their digital education with a single source for information and advice on all the courses available.
Jared Owen, ONE digital and entrepreneurship director, said: “The purpose of the Future Skills Partnership is to is to provide access to the latest in digital learning and education to people across the region who we know will benefit from expanding their digital skillset.
“ONE and its partners have a clear ambition to accelerate economic diversification and support sustainable economic growth. Driving digital adoption and maturity is a key part of this and the web portal is a great way of helping everyone – people and organisations – across our key sectors access the resources to do this.
“The region has led the way in terms of energy for many decades, and the pace of digital transformation within that sector in particular is accelerating. This presents us with a tremendous opportunity to enhance the existing skills base in the region to support the energy transition, as well as other industries as they embrace the digital future.”
The Future Skills Partnership believes more needs to be done to keep those skills in the region and have found there is a growing demand for upskilling the workforce from individuals and industry.
Jared added: “The north-east of Scotland has consistently been one of the most productive parts of the UK and we firmly believe increasing the digital capabilities of people in the region will help retain the top talent required for sustainable, high value jobs.
“We want people to get with the programme and develop skills that will not only improve their own skillset, but potentially bring new investment to the north east.
“People know they need to either build on the skills they already have or develop new ones but are unsure where and how to do this. The Future Skills Partnership can provide them with everything they need to be competitive in today’s fast-moving digital world.”
