Export success to create jobs at Middlesbrough-based Sound Training

Middlesbrough-based Sound Training is creating jobs after growing its presence overseas.

The company, which produces educational programmes, plans to take on five new staff over the next 12 months to support its export strategy.

Sound Training first approached the Department for International Trade (DIT) four years ago to explore the idea of selling globally.

Working together they identified the US market as an initial focus, and after a trade mission to Denver and meetings with staff in the UK embassy in Boston, Sound Training secured its first US customers.

In 2017, the company attended a Dubai education conference with DIT support and now has contracts with schools in Dubai, Qatar and Oman.

Sound Training was founded in 2011 with a team of two and now employs 70 staff. Its aim is to boost literacy levels and raise attainment in children and adults through intensive, one-hour weekly sessions.

Sound Training CEO Claire Preston said: “We’re passionate about helping people reach their full learning potential and believed our programmes could work as well overseas as they do in the UK.

“Our local DIT adviser helped us with market research, giving us the confidence to approach overseas audiences knowing our programmes met their needs.

“Over the next five years, we are planning to focus equally on UK and overseas growth.”

She continued: “We will continue to work closely with DIT as the networks they’ve helped us to build have been invaluable.

“We are passionate about helping close the education attainment gap, whether it’s in a school in Leeds or a prison in Texas. If a business from Middlesbrough can take its services across the world, anyone can.”

David Coppock, Head of Regions, North East at the DIT, commented: “Exporting isn’t always about goods, as Sound Training has shown.

“This is a great example of a service business that has exported successfully and will now help educate people across the world.”