Assured Skills Academies: delivering skilled employees through fully funded pre-employment training courses

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