Skills, Training Employment and Digital
Our world-renowned engineering heritage has provided the legacy of a highly skilled workforce - not only in advanced manufacturing but across many other sectors.
South Ribble consistently has unemployment levels well below the county and national rates. This is due in part to the mobility and flexibility of our labour force. Over half the working population living in South Ribble travels to work elsewhere - mainly in Preston and Chorley. Similarly, around 45% of the people working in South Ribble live outside the borough a providing access to a large, mobile workforce.
Apprentice Factory
South Ribble Borough Council Apprentice Factory www.apprenticefactory.com provides impartial, specialist support to businesses, people considering a career change and students planning their future careers, by providing a comprehensive and complete range of skills and training advice and guidance in a one-stop-shop. The Apprentice Factory offers your business impartial advice and support in finding the best solutions for skills and workforce development needs. We can help with recruitment support, local labour market information and guidance on affordable training options for your workforce. Let us save you time by connecting you directly with the right provider.
Please contact: apprenticefactory@southribble.gov.uk
Educational standards are high; GCSE and equivalent results come in well above the regional and national averages, as do A level results. According the government’s official A level performance data, Runshaw College is one of the highest performing colleges - nationally.
Within 35 miles are the universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster, Central Lancashire and Edge Hill providing an abundant supply of graduates. The Knowledge Transfer Programmes and specialist sector support available from the University of Central Lancashire and other local higher education helps ensure that our businesses have access to all their current and future skills needs. The Academy for Skills & Knowledge at Samlesbury Enterprise Zone is a £15.6m investment to ensure our people have the skills ready to continue engineering and manufacturing the military aircraft of the future.
The Lancashire Skills & Employment Hub have created a guide to the support for businesses. If you are looking to attract a future talent pipeline to your organisation, recruit staff, upskill your workforce or support Lancashire through school activity and other social value activity then this information aims to highlight the services available. Please see the PDF download for details or follow this link: Lancashire Skills Hub
Skills for Work
Lancashire Skills and Employment Hub have brought together information about support that can help you get a job, and if you are employed there is help for you to learn new skills. Over 50 organisations across the whole of Lancashire are working together to make it easy for you to find work and training.
There are 100's of offers across Lancashire here to help you learn new skills or to support your health & wellbeing.
https://www.skillsforwork.info/southribble
Embrace Digital are running a free programme to help local businesses better understand which digital software can help support the growth and resilience of your business.
These include:
- Digital Marketing
- Selling Online
- Productivity Tools
- Cloud Accounting
Please see the link below for the full details of the programme
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/embrace-digital-lancashire-33732565553
Skills Support for Redundancy:
The Skills Support for Redundancy programme is available in Lancashire as part of Skills Support for the Workforce. The programme provides a fully funded tailored service for employers, and can support employees at risk of redundancy or who have been made redundant within the last 3 months. Support includes employability skills, CV developing, IT skills and interview skills.
For more information please email: info@businessinsouthribble.com
Preston’s College offers a wide range of job-related courses from BTECs and NVQs through to Apprenticeships, with courses tailored around the needs of employers. Preston's College is working with Lancashire LEP to offer support under the Government's Skills Support Initiative. Please call 01772 225577 for details.
Since spring 2017 the government changed the way that the government funds apprenticeships. Some employers will be required to contribute to a new apprenticeship levy, and there will be changes to the funding for apprenticeship training for all employers. The apprenticeship levy requires all employers operating in the UK, with a pay bill over £3 million each year, to make an investment in apprenticeships. You can benefit from this investment by training apprentices.
Boost Business Lancashire https://www.boostbusinesslancashire.co.uk/support/ offers a Growth Mentoring programme for ambitious Lancashire businesses. Growth Mentoring is a fully funded programme, which is delivered by Orvia and Community and Business Partners, for Lancashire business-to-business focused companies (SMEs). Support is offered from a successful business person to address the challenges that any growing business must overcome including business planning and human resource management. To check if you would be eligible and for further information please contact: 01772 429290 or email: mentoring@orvia.co.uk http://www.boostbusinesslancashire.co.uk/how-we-can-help/growth-mentoring-and-coaching.aspx
You can access Government funding to cover some of the cost of training and assessing an apprentice https://www.gov.uk/take-on-an-apprentice if you have a business in England: https://www.gov.uk/take-on-an-apprentice/get-funding
Our local colleges and training providers can offer all the support you need and the National Apprenticeship Service can guide you to the right choice through their website https://findapprenticeshiptraining.apprenticeships.education.gov.uk or by calling: 0800 015 0600
Further help still is provided by the The Lancashire Work-Based Learning Executive Forum (LWBLEF) training portal. The portal helps to make it easy for you to find your ideal training provider from the high quality work-based learning opportunities available to young people and adults within the workforce in Lancashire.