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A consortium of creative industry business in the UK have secured £6.5m in funding to set up a Next Gen Skills Academy.
The Consortium behind the initiative includes companies such as Ubisoft Reflections, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Pinewood Studios and Framestore. The scheme will develop new entry level qualifications and will work to offer apprenticeships, short courses and online learning tailored to meet key skills needs.
This investment will help develop a new online learning platform to provide the training. A network of further education colleges will also be established across England to deliver 1,300 qualifications, including 150 apprenticeships and more than 1,000 training courses from industry experts. It should be noted the latter figure includes short courses and "taster sessions".
The government will invest £2.6m in the program over the next three years, while employers will provide a further £3.6m of funding over an unspecified period of time.
It is hoped the scheme will help support training for aspiring animators, game designers and visual effects artists.
"The UK’s creative industries are amongst the strongest in the world, worth £71.4 billion per year to the UK economy and supporting more than 1.7m jobs," said business secretary Vince Cable.
"Visual effects and games in particular are a great British success story. But if we’re to maintain our cutting-edge position, we need to make sure that we have the talent and skills the industry needs. That why the Creative Industries Strategy places skills development as a key priority for the future growth of this important sector."
