Assured Skills Academies: delivering skilled employees through fully funded pre-employment training courses
The Assured Skills programme offers you the chance to recruit high quality individuals who are 'job ready'.
Assured Skills Academies offer the opportunity to work closely with the Department for the Economy (DfE) and Invest Northern Ireland to recruit high-quality employees.
Assured Skills Academies are fully funded pre-employment training courses, typically lasting for around six to eight weeks. Each course is designed and delivered by a local Further Education college or university in conjunction with the participating company to ensure that individuals are upskilled to be job-ready.
A key component of Assured Skills Academies is that there are employment vacancies available for all participants and that they are guaranteed a job interview upon successful completion of the academy.
This approach is versatile and flexible and has been used to help companies recruit staff in a variety of sectors, such as:
- IT
- professional services
- financial services
- manufacturing and engineering
- childcare
Benefits of Assured Skills Academies
Assured Skills Academies has benefits for both employers and participants:
- Course development and delivery are fully funded by DfE.
- Participants receive a weekly training allowance plus travel and childcare payments from DfE.
- Provides an opportunity for employers to see the suitability of participants prior to a guaranteed job interview.
- Allows participants to gain an insight into the work of their potential employer while learning new and transferable skills.
- If an academy participant is unsuccessful in gaining employment with the participating company, they will still have gained industry-relevant transferable skills.
Find out more about Assured Skills Academies.
If you would like to speak to a member of the Assured Skills team, you can contact them by:
- Tel 028 9041 6972
- Email assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk