Funded Digital Training For Over 19s

People with a strong interest in moving into a digital career have an opportunity to change their fortunes for the better.

Two free Skills Bootcamps are being delivered by The Open University (OU) that will fast track those taking part into their first digital job or into a new digital role with their existing employer.

The OU is keen to hear from over 19s who are available to start the 16-week part-time programme in the autumn of this year.

Technology is transforming almost every aspect of our daily lives and the number of job vacancies requiring digital skills continues to grow at a breath-taking pace. A digital career promises to be varied, fast moving and rewarding and these programmes could be the catalyst for change in people’s lives.

We have designed them to flex around work and home commitments to maximise the ability for people to take part and pursue their ambitions, irrespective of their personal circumstances.

The programmes also represent a great opportunity for employers to address digital skills gaps by accessing a new talent pool or to train existing employees for a different digital job within their organisation.

Jane Dickinson, digital skills lead at the OU

Employers will only pay 30% of the programme fee to upskill existing staff, the remainder is financed by the Department for Education.

The DevNetSkills by The Open University programme trains people in DevOps – a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations. Experts say it is currently one of the fastest-growing technology areas.

And the DataSkills by The Open University programme will provide people with the technical skills to understand and interpret data to inform decision making in organisations. If you want to find out more visit www.open.ac.uk/business/skills-bootcamps
 

These programmes support the objectives of the OU, to reach even more students giving them life-changing learning that meets the needs of employers.

Our priorities continue to be to deliver high-quality flexible student learning to achieve maximum student satisfaction and reach those who might not have found a pathway to this type of career.

We have had 50 years’ experience supporting people developing their careers and we’re excited to be on this new journey with them.

Josie Fraser, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the OU

Those on the programmes can access high-quality online learning with live webinars, online support, careers insights and coaching, leading to the opportunity to earn internationally recognised IT industry certifications from Microsoft or Cisco.

The Skills Bootcamps are available across England and funded by the UK Government as part of its Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Plan for Jobs where hundreds of qualifications are on offer for dedicated people who meet the eligibility criteria. All programmes incorporate careers and employability support to provide jobseekers with a pathway to an interview for a digital job. The OU Skills Bootcamps are delivered as part of an Institute of Coding project.

The DataSkills by The Open University programme will provide the foundations before moving on to help students develop high-level data analysis skills that employers look for when filling entry-level jobs. Those roles could be analysts in business intelligence, business systems, marketing or logistics. Visit www.open.ac.uk/data-skills

The application deadline for the programme is 19th September, visit www.open.ac.uk/data-skills/apply

The DevNetSkills by The Open University programme prepares people to enter job roles including DevOps, Systems and automation engineers as well as Cloud administrators. Visit www.open.ac.uk/devnet-skills

The closing date for applications to the programme is 19th September 2021. Visit www.open.ac.uk/devnet-skills/apply