Thousands more adults set to benefit from new technical skills

Thousands of working adults will soon benefit from free courses that will help them to rapidly upskill or retrain, as part of the government's drive to plug skills gaps and boost access to more high-quality training alternatives. Sixty-five short and modular courses will start to roll out from later this month at 10 Institutes of Technology (IoTs) across England in sought-after STEM subjects. This will include courses such as Artificial Intelligence, Digitisation of Manufacturing, Digital Construction, Agricultural Robotics, and Cyber Security. The courses will be a blend of classroom and remote online study, and will vary in length from 50 to 138 hours – giving more adults greater flexibility in how and when they learn, so they can fit it around their lives. Swindon and Wiltshire IoT, for instance, will offer five short 50 hour courses across eight weeks.