QA and UST take steps to close tech skill gaps
QA, a long-standing provider of bespoke digital training methods, have announced their collaboration with UST, an innovative leader in digital business transformations. This announcement comes after QA's previous contribution to delivering government-backed digital skills bootcamps to retrain 1000s of people across the country.
UST announced a multi-year Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS) last year, to build industry/domain-centric digital solutions for healthcare, financial services, and telecom.
QA has come on board to offer AWS-specific funded learning pathways, which include training bootcamps and apprenticeships.
Collaborating to support up to 600 people into tech careers from diverse and socially mobile backgrounds
Individuals in low-paid jobs have been at a higher risk of long-term unemployment than ever since the pandemic. Digital skills gaps are also at an all-time high, with 23% of businesses reporting a lack of even basic digital skills.
UST and QA aim to address both problems, by providing a willing workforce with the skills needed to overcome skills gaps that are only set to become more severe as technology continues to advance.
Speaking on the collaboration, UST’s UK managing director, Praveen Prabhakaran shared, ‘We are excited to launch the UST AWS Academy, where we will be partnering with QA to recruit, train and develop up to 600 people from diverse and socially mobile backgrounds. We believe this is a great opportunity to further drive the UK Government’s levelling up agenda using returners as one of the core channels. This Academy provides people with the opportunity to work with a truly global and forward-thinking organisation and begin their career within technology with the core purpose of transforming lives.’
The Benefits of UST’s AWS Academy
QA has long believed that the key to closing digital skills gaps lies in reskilling and upskilling willing candidates. This focus was at the forefront of the digital skills bootcamps QA delivered as part of the Government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Plan for Jobs. It’s also a prime focus of UST’s AWS Academy, which aims to address skills gaps by training 600 individuals from diverse backgrounds who may have been overlooked otherwise.
QA’s managing director, Allan Allison, stated, ‘UST’s project to create digital careers within Cloud Services is truly groundbreaking. Their determination to upskill and support hundreds of diverse candidates via funded bootcamps and apprenticeships will define excellence in social mobility within the Tech sector. As the leading provider of digital skills in Europe (and AWS’s Training provider of the year) QA and QA Apprenticeships are proud to be partnering with UST on this initiative with our AWS-specific funded learning pathways. The combination of UST's incredible growth ambitions in the UK, alongside the world-class training the candidates will receive, could have a huge impact on UST's clients and the learners on the programme. It also gives a clear blueprint for addressing the UK’s digital skills gap. Open to people of all backgrounds, tech returners, re-skillers, non-tech people looking to get into tech, this is going to be something really special – and I can’t wait to see the success and impact it brings.’