Great Yarmouth Skills and Employability Strategy 2024-2029

Residents and employers are at the heart of the Council's ambitions to foster a vibrant and inclusive coastal economy that builds upon our successes and our strengths in clean energy and tourism, capitalises upon our culture and our communities and responds effectively to new challenges.

"Skills, qualifications and aspirations are leading factors in secure employment, earnings and economic growth. It's essential that our residents can access the kinds of skills and qualifications that employers need. Their requirements are changing as the wider economy - and the way we do business - changes, opening up new skills gaps and new opportunities. Our ambition is that residents of all ages and backgrounds can flourish here and reach their full potential"-

We share a number of complex problems with other seaside towns - an ageing population, pockets of local deprivation, lower wages and higher unemployment rates. These result in an inequality of opportunity for our residents. Skills, qualifications, aspirations, ambitions and a reliance on certain forms of employment are all limiting the opportunities available to our residents.

• 18% of residents have degree-level qualifications, compared to 34% across England as a whole

• 27% of residents of working age are economically-inactive, compared to 19% across Norfolk as a whole

• Our employers have growing skills gaps - not just skills needed for higher-value jobs, but basic, soft and digital skills, too

It is essential that people can access the kinds of skills and qualifications that employers actually need. These requirements are changing as the wider economy and the way we do business changes, opening up new skills gaps - and new opportunities.

There needs to be a better way of co-ordinating skills and qualifications at a local level, with support that is simpler for residents of all ages and all levels of attainment to access, where they are able to find their way through the support available to them and enter - or progress in - an ever more complex labour market.

Through extensive engagement and research our residents and employers have told us that they need a skills system that not only provides access to jobs, but also supports learning and progression throughout people's working lives - from inspiring and encouraging young people in our schools through to supporting older people to re-enter the labour market.

The Great Yarmouth Skills Taskforce was set up to meet this challenge, bringing together employers, training providers, schools, colleges and universities to co-ordinate activity and collaborate on projects to ensure that residents can access the jobs that employers need to fill.

Those projects include new and upgraded training and education facilities and new ways for residents to attain skills and qualifications - lifelong learning that is easier to access and better understood by both residents and employers.

The Great Yarmouth Skills and Employability Strategy sets out the challenges and opportunities and provides a collaborative blueprint for the Council, the Great Yarmouth Skills Taskforce, partners, educators, trainers, residents and employers to design projects and activities that achieve its aims.