Leeds City College

Our strategic partnerships are a key part of how we develop skills, expand job search opportunities and enhance awareness of career roles. Today, we’re spotlighting Ahead Partnership.

The Leeds-based organisation works with employers to help young people overcome barriers and achieve their full potential.

Our work with Ahead Partnership is one of the ways we are making digital skills training more accessible.

Keep reading to find out how.

“By connecting young people with diverse role models from industry and creating hands-on activities, we create an environment where young people can develop those essential skills and gain insight into the industry from those who are in it.” – Suzy Bell, Ahead Partnership

Linking students with industry experts

Despite technological advancements progressing like never before, working in a digitally-skilled role – or getting one’s foot in the door – remains difficult for many.

Almost 80% of tech roles advertised in 2022 were at senior level, potentially hindering graduates from accessing entry-level roles and preventing those at earlier stages of their career from gaining valuable workplace experience.

To bridge the gap between students and employers, we worked with Ahead Partnership to organise a series of networking events – allowing students to explore specific roles in digital and better understand what they involve.

At one careers panel, Digital and IT students engaged in a Q&A with representatives from various organisations, including Aire Logic, IMG and West Yorkshire Police.

Questions ranged from the ‘top skills employers look for’ to ‘how to begin a career in digital’.

These events deepen our students’ understanding of digital career roles and provide insight into the experiences of industry professionals.

Making it easier to explore different careers

If cyber security or website development are the first careers that come to mind when you think of the digital sector, you’re not alone.

Most people don’t realise that over 36% of positions in the digital workforce involve non-technical professions, including sales, user experience and product management.

One advantage of studying at college is how industry-specific courses equip students with the skills for both technical and non-technical roles.

Our tutors and careers advisors can also point students towards areas with high demand and less competition, encouraging early consideration of lesser known career specialisms.

Training more people in ‘big data’ or data management, for example, would provide graduates with a transferable skill set and enable businesses, across various sectors, to benefit from improved analytics and insight.

At our Women In Tech workshop, almost half of the visitors signed up to the Project Management With Data course, showing that there is demand for continue training in this area.

Putting skills into practice

A session with Netcompany saw 60 students engage in a fictional exercise where they took on the role of an IT specialist and developed realistic solutions to a hypothetical technological threat.

At another workshop with Accenture, 40 students were tasked with using a form of technology – such as artificial intelligence (AI) or smartphones – to solve an issue experienced by consumers today.

The above sessions are just some of the ways we have been collaborating with Ahead Partnership to increase the readiness of young people, providing engaging ways to teach how issues in modern society can be used to forecast and advance the digital sector.

Whether it’s the ideation, development or implementation stage of the process, digital skills training can successfully teach students the skills needed to enter future employment with confidence.