SkillSet: Offshore Wind by The Crown Estate (in partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions)
Supporting the UK as a world leader in offshore wind by upskilling DWP work coaches
The offshore wind industry is crucial in the UK’s transition to a net zero economy. However, with a shortage of skills and an additional 70,000 jobs needed by 2030 to achieve this ambition, it’s no secret that there is work to be done. In partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), The Crown Estate is keen to close this gap.
In partnership with Hopscotch Consulting, TCE developed a pilot programme to upskill work coaches from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and educate them on the offshore wind sector. SkillSet: Offshore Wind was created to equip work coaches with the skills and knowledge they need to support and recruit local unemployed people into a job within the offshore wind industry.
We took a robust research approach to ensure our programme was fit-for-purpose and useful to work coaches and industry employers. We conducted focus groups with DWP work coaches to investigate their preferred ways of learning to ensure the workshop met their needs. After collating the findings from the focus groups and using our own desk research, we hosted a session with key stakeholders and the programme’s partners from The Crown Estate, the DWP, Offshore Wind Learning, Renewable UK, Orsted, and Equinor to gather initial feedback on the best approach for the official workshops.
The SkillSet programme was then launched, with our team designing and hosting multiple training sessions and workshops. Feedback from the workshops was extremely positive with work coaches stating that they had already referred customers to opportunities in the sector within days of attending the sessions. The Department for Work and Pensions also reported the work coaches feeling “appreciated” due to having the chance to feed into the design and structure of the programme from the start, demonstrating the strength in bringing stakeholders together through open discussions and trialled experiences to hear their thoughts, feelings, and preferences.