Individuals and businesses in Wales will benefit from an almost six-fold increase in the amount of subsidy available for accredited training opportunities.
With the Welsh Government increasing its investment in the Flexible Skills Programme from £1.3 million a year to over £7.5 million, support will be in place for employees to take advantage of thousands of individual places on upskilling or re-skilling training courses.
The expansion aligns with the First Minister’s commitment to create a future Wales driven by jobs and green growth and follows increasing demand from Welsh employers for support to develop employees’ skills in response to changing industries and new technologies. There will be a particular focus on supporting key sectors and needed skills such as: Engineering and Manufacturing; Digital/Cyber; green skills; and leadership and management.
Any employer can apply for the grant which is designed to help businesses quickly respond to skills gaps with the Welsh Government paying 50% of business training costs (up to £50,000 per business per year).
The expanded scheme was launched today on the first day of Learning at Work week [Monday, May 12] at IQ Endoscopes (IQE), a pioneering medical device startup that has seen first-hand what a difference the funding can make.
IQE is about to place its first device onto the UK market – an affordable, sterile, and sustainable endoscope solution that will enable rapid early diagnosis to help reduce patient waiting times and help people live longer and healthier lives. The Flexible Skills Programme has enabled it to support over 170 individual technical or leadership and management training opportunities for its staff over the past two years.
For further information please select the following links:
- Massive expansion of successful scheme to plug skills gap | GOV.WALES
- Flexible Skills Programme boosts IQ Endoscopes growth and development | Business Wales
- Ogi powers growth and staff development with the Flexible Skills Programme | Business Wales
- Ramsay and White utilise Jobs Growth Wales+ to recruit and train new staff | Business Wales