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March 2021: Applications for the Skills Builder Accelerator are open!

Hello! We hope you had a good February. We're starting March with an exciting announcement: applications are officially open for our flagship education programme, the Skills Builder Accelerator.

For the first time schools and colleges anywhere in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland can apply to join our UK Accelerator, and those anywhere else in the world can join the inaugural cohort on the Global Accelerator.

Click here to learn more, see success stories and apply for the Accelerator.

Plus:

  • New jobs available - We're looking for fantastic people to join our fantastic team
  • Essential Skills Academy - Train to build essential skills on work placements
  • New organisations - See all our latest partnerships
  • Latest research - Read our new research into essential skills and careers

Scroll down to see all the latest. See you next month!

Tom Ravenscroft
Founder & CEO, Skills Builder Partnership

Applications for the Skills Builder Accelerator are now open!


The Accelerator is our flagship programme for schools and colleges. We work together with you to develop and implement a complete strategy for teaching essential skills in your institution, including training and support, tools and resources - resulting in real impact for your students. Institutions outside the UK can apply for the Global Accelerator.

  • Join a movement and network with other Skills Leaders
  • Empower students to build and articulate their essential skills
  • Implement a complete strategy to bring teaching colleagues with you

For programme details, success stories, FAQs, and more...

Discover the Accelerator

We talked to Skills Leaders across the UK about their experience with the Accelerator: how it fitted into their strategy, the impact for staff and students, the resources and their advice to anyone interested in applying.

Hear what they had to say  ▶


New jobs available

If you want to be part of an inspiring team, and benefit from opportunities for rapid growth, development and challenge, we want to hear from you.


Communications Associate     Deadline: 9th March
Are you an ambitious communications professional, who wants to share the brilliant work of our partners to a wider audience and support wider change?


Development Manager     Deadline: 17th March
Do you build outstanding relationships and have strong fundraising skills, and want to have a real impact by helping transform how the world builds essential skills?


Policy Manager     Deadline: 29th March
Are you an ambitious policy professional, who wants to lead our ambition for systemic change, enabling everyone to build the essential skills to thrive?

Click here to learn more and apply


Introducing the Essential Skills Academy

Get access to a fully-resourced training course supporting your work placement participants to make measurable progress in employability skills, underpinned by the Skills Builder Framework. The course is designed to support:

  • Kickstart
  • Graduate Schemes
  • Apprenticeships
  • Internships
  • Work experience
  • Employability training

Our expert Skills Advisors can deliver remote training directly to your cohort, or we can provide train-the-trainer sessions to enable your team to deliver the course to your participants.

Get in contact to find out more


New impact partners

A host of exciting impact organisations have recently joined the Skills Builder Partnership, including Burnley FC in the Community, Wheely Tots, Speakers for Schools, Fire Tech, London Youth Rowing, Capital One Pathways, National Development Team for Inclusion, Dev Clever and Solent Local Enterprise Partnership. We're excited to work with all of them to build the Skills Builder approach into their existing programmes.

Check out all the organisations we work with


Read our latest research

New research conducted by the Skills Builder Partnership explores the relationship between higher levels of essential skills, measured using Skills Builder Framework, and employment outcomes. This report gives us important new insights from the three key questions that have framed this research:

  • Who has essential skills, and how does this vary by socio-economic background?
  • How do young people build essential skills, and what are their attitudes to them?
  • What is the impact of essential skills on earnings and qualifications level?

Read the report as well as watch the recording of the launch event below.

Read research and watch launch video