Digital Skills Opportunities for Young People
There is a range of free online learning programmes and short courses that can help you improve your basic skills or focus on developing skills needed to enter the Tech Sector.
The iDEA Award
The iDEA Award (The Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award) is described as an international programme that helps you develop digital, enterprise and employability skills for free. You complete a series of online challenges and collect badges when successful. Each badge has points and 250 points gets you your Bronze Award, an industry-recognised award. Read more about it here.
Lancashire’s Skills Bootcamps
Skills Bootcamps are intensive and flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, giving people the opportunity to build up sector specific skills and fast track to an interview with a local employer. You have to be 19+ to take part in one.
Designed with employers, participants will gain the in-demand skills to move into or progress in their chosen sector. Participants will be offered a GUARANTEED job interview for real job upon completion.
Bootcamps are presently available in cyber security, data analytics, digital marketing, electech and software development. More will be available later in the year.
For more information on all the available Skills Bootcamps, click here.
BT Skills for Tomorrow
A free online resource to learn digital skills for daily life, for work life, for business. Click here to find out more. They are also offering a range of free webinars – full list of webinars.
Lloyds Bank Academy
The Lloyds Academy is packed with free digital skills learning for any level. There is a wide range of courses available to choose from such as:
Office 365
Whether you want to learn the basics of office apps such as Excel or Word or work smarter, after learning new tips and tricks, the Office 365 Training Center offers a range of training for you to access for free.
Skills for All from Cisco
Free online courses for tech jobs – take courses and gain digital badges that can demonstrate your skills to potential employers. Click here for further info.
Digital Wings (Barclays)
The Barclays’ Digital Wings platform offers a wide range of online training modules and webinars in four categories – essentials, home, work and business. Ranging from setting up a device, to improving communication skills, to cyber security and data related training. To have a look – click here.
Training by Google
Google has a range of training programmes you may find useful.
Code with Google
Code with Google– can be used by teachers with their students or independently these programmes are designed for you to explore, advance and succeed in computer science.
Google’s Applied Digital Skills
Applied Digital Skills – 250+ hours of content for teachers to use with students to teach digital skills or can be used independently by students. Designed for all levels of ability to use.
Google Digital Garage
Google Digital Garage Online Training – online courses designed for you to grow your career or business. Courses cover topics such as data and tech, digital marketing or career development.
CompTIA – Want to know more about Future Tech
You may also find this free and growing library of resources created by CompTIA useful in keeping you up to speed on what’s new and next – go to their Future of Tech site to find out more about big data, cybersecurity, digital health, internet of things and artificial intelligence.
Check out the video as an example of the information you can find out!
Further courses to develop specialist digital skills.
1. AWS – Amazon Web Services
AWS—Amazon Web Services offer some free training on a variety of topics from analytics and big data to machine learning and application integration. There are also links to other training you can purchase, so please ensure you filter for the free digital training.
2. OpenSAP
openSAP – Free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) open to everyone interested in learning whether you are a professional, career changer, student or just interested.
3. Cisco Networking Academy
Cisco Networking Academy – Build your skills with introductions to cybersecurity, internet of things, entrepreneurship, Linux3.
4. Microsoft Learn
With Microsoft Learn you can learn skills required to advance your career and gain Microsoft Certification. You can filter course by beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Courses cover:
- .Net e.g. .NET core
- Azure e.g. Azure Active Directory
- Dynamics 365 e.g. AI for customer service
- Power Platform e.g. Power BI
- SQL Server
- Visual Studio e.g. App centre
- Windows
- Microsoft 365 e.g. Cloud app security
- Office 365 e.g. Sharepoint framework
5. Institute of Coding
Offering a wide range of industry-inspired courses co-designed by a network of employers and education. Courses are there if you want to find out more about digital, learn new skills, or prepare for your career by studying for a degree. Find more information here.
6. Code Academy
Code Academy have advanced courses in Data Science, Web Development and Mobile Development.
7. Future Learn
From learning to code and exploring programming to understanding cyber security, take online IT and coding courses to explore tech trends like data science and digital marketing. Join beginner to advanced level courses led by leading tech experts. For more information.