It is a no brainer that a well trained workforce is a pre-requisite for a strong and sustainable economy and the life blood of every business and organisation. However, in a county with near full employment, the challenge is to ensure our skills support system is closely aligned. It is only in this way that economic growth will occur and we can truly call any growth sustainable.

What does this mean?

It means the local workforce, employers, training providers and other agencies, such as government, understand what sectors in Oxfordshire are critical to success and driving growth. Each has a role to play in building and moving toward a more integrated and responsive skills support system.

OxLEP Skills

OxLEP Skills brings together a range of services that help Oxfordshire schools to facilitate careers and enterprise education and experiences, including Oxfordshire Apprenticeships, Opportunities To Inspire (O2i) and Oxfordshire Work Experience. Bringing these together to form OxLEP Skills enables us to work in a more joined up way and make best use of our resources to support schools with developing and delivering initiatives. Read the OxLEP Skills offer for schools and OxLEP Skills guide for schools working with business volunteers.

We also manage The Careers & Enterprise Company Enterprise Adviser network for Oxfordshire, which sees volunteers from business supporting schools at a strategic level to deliver high quality careers experiences. Our Enterprise Coordinators work with EAs and schools to facilitate this activity. Would you like to get involved with this invaluable initiative and inspire young people? Read about our Employer Engagement Programme to find out what sorts of activities your organisation could offer a school.

Skills Strategy

The Oxfordshire Skills Board supports the work of OxLEP. It provides a strategic and coordinated response to skills development in the county. In its Skills Strategy it sets out the following refreshed Strategic Priorities:

• SP1: To meet the needs of local employers through a more integrated and responsive approach to education and training: developed in partnership with our provider network, to encourage more training provision in identified priority sectors - both current and projected.
• SP2: To ensure that young people are prepared for the world of work through delivery of high quality CEIAG, by well-informed careers leaders in schools supported by qualified careers advisers. This will include multiple encounters with employers and use of up to date local labour market information.
• SP3: To address Oxfordshire’s tight labour market and skills shortage areas by:
  • ensuring those marginalised or disadvantaged from work, are moved closer to the labour market
  • supporting and encouraging  older workers to consider vacancies in areas of skills shortage
• SP4: To support the government’s agenda to increase the number of apprenticeships offered, and apprenticeship uptake, particularly within small to medium sized businesses.
• SP5: To investigate how Oxfordshire as a place of employment is promoted to graduates in our HE organisations, and how more graduates can be retained to meet the demand our businesses have for higher level skills.

What are we doing?