Sheffield City Region LEP targets local tech skills gap with new coding project

An upskilling project with a local manufacturing company has led to coding educators The Developer Academy to join Skills Bank.

Skills Bank is a Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) project.

Founded in February, the startup coding business focuses on retraining local people for a job in tech to work around their current job and other commitments.

The company has been working in this capacity with employees at a local manufacturing company, so that they make their own custom software and tech solutions to improve production and productivity.

Ben Atha, founder of The Developer Academy, said: “It’s because of this work that we have joined Skills Bank which is fantastic because this project provides employers with up to 70 per cent funding for training that they can use to help their business grow.

“The flexibility of our training is really important and it’s designed to fit around people’s work or other commitments. Training is provided through an online system, which means our students can learn at their own pace.

“What’s really key to our success is that we also provide face to face support from experienced instructors at our group training sessions, which happen in the evenings and at weekends.”

The company is also helping to bridge the local digital skills gap because they only teach the coding skills and languages that they know local employers want.