Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) has secured £7m from the Department of Education to provide fully-funded training to people living and working in Bolton and across Greater Manchester, aiming to support them into employment after a career break.

Training will be delivered as part of Greater Manchester’s Skills Bootcamps - part of the Government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee – which helps people to get onto the career ladder, transition back into work after a break or access progression opportunities.

The bootcamps will support people aged 19 and over from priority groups with flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, while helping employers to fill skills shortages they have identified.

In 2018, GMCA initially worked with the Department for Media, Culture and Sport to test Skills Bootcamps through a pilot scheme called the ‘Fast Track Digital Workforce Fund’, which focused particularly on providing accessible routes into digital employment.

As a result of the pilot’s success, whereby 53 per cent of learners were successfully supported into employment, the Department for Education is now rolling out and scaling up more varied Skills Bootcamps nationally. The funding GMCA has been awarded will go towards offering training in the city-region until 2023 across range of industries such as construction, manufacturing, digital, the green economy and others.

Cllr Eamonn O’Brien, Greater Manchester’s new lead for Education, Work, Skills, Apprenticeships and Digital said: “It’s fantastic that our success rolling out the previous Digital Workforce Fund has led to Skills Bootcamps being scaled up on a national level. This demonstrates how Greater Manchester is committed and forward-thinking when it comes to offering a skills system that is fit for purpose, ensuring local people have access to new opportunities while businesses can benefit from a high-quality talent pool.

“We have ambitions to offer long-term support and remain committed to better joining up to the post-19 skills system so people who live and work here have access to better opportunities and businesses can benefit from a high-quality, local talent pool to support economic growth.

“We look forward to working with the Department of Education on an ongoing basis in order to support as many local people as we possibly can.”

More than half (£4.5m) of the £7m secured is earmarked to improve digital skills across a range of industries, inspiring people to think about a career in digital by giving them the skills and confidence to do it.

This is a gap consistently identified by employers following the effects of Covid-19.

The rest of the funding will be used to deliver training that responds to sector-specific challenges, such as upskilling in retrofit and green techniques.

For more information about Skills Bootcamps visit: www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/skillsbootcamps.