Tech firm launches £1m training academy to plug skills gap

A consultancy specialising in business, technology and digital transformation has ploughed £1 million into setting up a training academy in Manchester to address the tech industry’s skills shortage.

The S&A transform group, which was founded over ten years ago by former CIO, CTO and entrepreneur Darren Coomer, launched S&A Academy in the city’s Spinningfields business and tech district earlier this week.

Coomer, who’s credited with many large-scale transformations in global corporates, as well as launching pioneering products in fintech and crypto, added that he wanted to “train the next generation of tech, science and business apprentices to maintain the talent pipeline to those fast-growing ecosystems”.

Comprising of three specialised academies: Technology and Digital; Science and Laboratory, and Business and Leadership, the training facility will offer apprenticeships in these three fields to people of all ages, from all walks of life.

In a statement S&A said that it hoped the academies would enable people to retrain and reskill “debunking previously inaccessible university degree pathways” so that they can obtain new careers in technology, science and business.

The consultancy said that it also aims to address a shortage of professional skills talent in the sector, with The UK Digital Strategy 2022 estimating that the digital skills gap costs the UK economy £63bn per year in gross domestic product.

According to Coomer, training new employees so they hit the ground running, was crucial in the wake of  startup growth network Tech Nation’s closure, which had incubated over a third of the UK’s tech unicorns.

Coomer said: “By investing in professional apprenticeships in science, tech and business, we are by default investing and producing the next generation of professional careers with our own British talent – both to address our current skills gap and to minimise our reliance on offshore labour.”