Independent higher education providers are ready to transform local opportunities as agile partners in growth
The next Government should:
- Incentivise employers and employees together to invest in higher skills
- Create a new rapid response mechanism for addressing local skills shortages
SAE Institute
SAE Institute was established in 1976 as a specialist provider of creative media programmes. Their mission is to provide specialist vocational and higher education courses worldwide to inspire and develop graduates, with a stated vision to be the world’s leading educator for the creative media industries.
Their USP has always been to provide students with high-quality practical experience and hands-on learning, through close industry links. Their programmes prepare graduates for a range of roles within the audio, film and visual effects industries, and in the fast-paced and innovative games, animation and web creative technologies sector. Programme content is shaped by emerging industry needs, producing a talent pipeline for a rapidly growing and evolving sector.
The skills need in this sector has a local dimension, with a number of ‘creative clusters’ across the UK. These centres of creative activity have new and growing businesses, and the potential to make a significant contribution to local growth. However outside of London these businesses struggle to access the highly skilled graduates they need. Employers want to invest in the specialist provision SAE offers, but they don’t have the right incentives to do so.
The footprint is small but the impact is big for local industry
SAE is meeting this challenge head on, establishing a new campus in one of the creative clusters – Leamington Spa. Leamington Spa is famous for its links with the gaming industry, and there’s an emergence of TV and film production in the area too. Their new campus is co-located with their industry partner, Cogent, giving students access to industry-grade facilities and the opportunity to work alongside professionals in their field. The footprint is small but the impact is big for local industry.
SAE has helped the creative industry to move to the next level in the West Midlands and is an example of the strength of independent providers working with industry to address local skills needs.