Wherever you look and whatever you read, skills and employability are hot topics of debate. This month I wanted to share my view as to where I think we are in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.
A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting at Nottingham City Council to support the business case for a potential new investor landing in the city. Key to their decision was not only office space to locate people in, but more importantly the availability of talented, motivated and skilled graduates to join them. The University of Nottingham’s Careers and Employability team were there to champion this cause and listening to them outline the diverse wealth of talent we produce here in Nottingham every year made me feel very proud.
It can be a little bit ‘chicken and egg’, because we need the jobs here to keep our graduates but part of our offering to investors is the healthy pipeline of skilled and able workers.
There has been talk of our graduates disappearing to London, dazzled by the bright lights and big salaries, but I’m not sure that this is the case any longer. When I graduated nearly 20 years ago, the majority of my peer group went to London for this very reason, but now they’re starting to come back in search of a better quality of life.
On the 18th July, I attended D2N2’s conference at MediCity. Our local LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership) is committed to creating 55,000 jobs across the D2N2 area by 2023 and a healthy proportion of these will be created in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.
Off the back of their Growth Deal we’ll see a transformational ‘Skills Hub‘ on derelict land off Canal Street to provide advice and skills to our young people. With our internationally recognised university courses and excellent vocational training schemes, Nottingham has the talent!
The East Midlands over the last 12 months has been the fastest growing area in the UK, outside of London and there’s no reason this shouldn’t continue. Our educational establishments continuing to train, along with our indigenous businesses continuing to invest in human capital, will be key to this growth.
We have a fantastic offering in our city and county including heritage, transport, education and business, which we should be very proud of.
Would my peer group from 20 years ago have left Nottingham today? I very much doubt it!