A group of technical students from UTC Reading (part of the Activate Learning Education Trust) following a pioneering education programme designed to address a chronic skills gap in a critical UK employment sector have enjoyed two days fact finding and forging industry connections.
The Year 12 and 13 engineering and digital specialist students have been networking and finding out about career opportunities at Data Centre World, one of the world’s largest gatherings of digital infrastructure and supporting industry professionals, which took place on 12-13 March at ExCel London.
The students have already been working alongside digital infrastructure employers in a UK-first education/industry collaboration – the Digital Futures Programme. Here they have been developing the skills they need to enter the industry – which is booming and in urgent need of new talent – a recent TechUK report states the industry will require an additional 60,000 workers in the UK by 2035!
However, many people are still unaware of what a data centre even is, let alone what careers are available (data centres are buildings which store much of the data generated in the UK, from photos taken on smartphones to NHS records and sensitive financial investment information). The sector was added to the ‘Critical National Infrastructure’ category last year alongside energy and water systems.
Opening the ALET UTCs & Partners stand was Stephen Phipson, CEO of Make UK and Chair of the Baker Dearing Trust which represents the UK’s 44 UTCs.
Addressing students and employers at the start of the event, Stephen Phipson said: “Today we have a whole set of new skills that employers are looking for from people leaving school across the whole of the engineering, manufacturing and AI sectors.
“There’s a real need in this country to accelerate digital skills, and we need to see more people getting involved in that at an early stage. Having employer engagement early with students helps us to understand exactly what skills and what training requirements are required for these new jobs.”
In a bid to help fill this technical skills gap and expand the career options of its students, the Trust launched the Digital Futures Programme in partnership with a number of leading companies across the digital infrastructure industry. As part of this programme the students were offered the chance to attend Data Centre World. To apply they had to fill in a 500-word personal statement stating why they wanted attend and complete a CNet Training data centre fundamentals course. The best were selected to attend.
The students came to Data Centre World with three goals: to meet UK and global employers; discover more about the range of career opportunities in the sector; and explore real world application of their learning.
Working with ‘mentors’ (employer partner volunteers from the DFP) the students were given two tasks – one, to find out about three companies around the exhibition and two, find out what one of those companies do that links directly to what they are learning at school – for example, using sustainable energy to cool data racks.
For most of the students it was their first time at an event like this and will have been quite a big deal. As well as adding to their knowledge of the digital infrastructure industry, the event will have added to their soft skills – confidence in speaking to exhibitors, professionalism in working alongside their employer mentors – even travelling into London will have been a first for some.
One of the mentors, Ross McConnell from Yondr Group, said: “Events like today are critical for employers as we are trying to demystify what data centres do and the value that they bring, to attract more people. Today the students have seen that there’s so many different roles whether it’s cyber security, energy, sustainability, and that these are roles they can aspire to.”
Those attending the second day heard an ALET-organised panel session, in which employees from Ark, Digital Realty, CBRE and LMG, as well as ALET’s Exec Director Wayne Edwards, spoke about the Digital Futures Programme and how it is raising awareness of industry opportunities and fuelling the next generation of digital infrastructure employees.
The Digital Futures Programme launched as a unique industry/education collaboration in November 2021 at UTC Heathrow and is already delivering talent to the sector, with the first graduates taking up apprenticeships.
The programme has won a number of global awards including Best Talent Developer for two years running at Data Centre World. It and has recently expanded across all ALET University Technical Colleges meaning around 1,100 students aged 14-19 years old are gaining industry-aligned skills.
Designed in collaboration with ten leading digital infrastructure employers (Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ark Data Centres, CBRE, CNet Training, CyrusOne, DataX Connect, Digital Realty, JLL, Kao Data, LMG, Vertiv, VIRTUS Data Centres and Yondr Group) the programme integrates real-world technical training into the curriculum. Students engage in masterclasses, challenge days, and industry placements, ensuring they graduate with the skills and experience that businesses need.
To find out more visit www.alet.org.uk/our-employer-partners/digital-futures-programme/
