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Sponsored by: Invest Northern Ireland
Training hub to support food and hospitality industries
Cutting-edge finance tech from Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland offers a compelling combination of technical excellence and cost competitiveness to support the international financial services industry. The region is a global force in FinTech and was recently ranked in the top three FinTech Locations of the Future, next to London and Singapore (FT fDi Markets, 2019). Global names such as Citi,
Allstate, Liberty Mutual and First Derivatives have established and expanded their operations here, while more recent investors CME Group, Vela and TP ICAP have joined the cluster and established delivery centres of significant scale in Northern Ireland. The region has the highest
concentration of Fintech employment in the UK, with one in five people in financial services and technology working within a Fintech role. Belfast was named the UK’s most technology centric city by Tech Nation, with 26 per cent of all job vacancies in 2019 in tech and digital. Deep expertise in trading
and payments technologies, regulatory and compliance solutions, insuretech and cyber security, combined with pioneering R&D in emerging technologies such as blockchain and AI, underpin the region’s global reputation. Northern Ireland companies
are providing a wide range of technology-led solutions to a growing international customer base across fund management, investment operations, regulatory compliance and risk management in support of the banking and financial industries.
If you would like to find out more about how we can help your business, please contact Ian Laverty (Investment) or Jennifer Liu (Digital Tech) at Invest Northern Ireland.
E:
ian.laverty@
investni.com T: 07887 677483
E:
jennifer.liu@
investni.com T: 07749 400268
26 CHAMBERLINK March 2021
A training hub to support food and hospitality professionals struggling due to the coronavirus crisis is being launched by University College Birmingham (UCB) in partnership with the NEC Group. The ‘Food and Hospitality Hub
@UCB’ will give those working in those industries the chance to gain new practical and business skills, tapping into the expertise of the university’s teaching staff, plus free access to a range of resources already used by students. Through the new hub, workers
will be able to access everything from food safety and allergens training, CV, skills assessment and profiling guidance and health and wellbeing advice through to signposting to other university services such as the entrepreneur- focused Enterprise Hive and Birmingham Skills for Enterprise and Employability Network (BSEEN). The launch comes after the
university signed up to support the recovery of the hospitality sector for the Coventry City of Culture celebrations in May, delivering ‘gold standard’ online training to around 500 staff across the region, funded by West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA). Kali Davidson, head of UCB’s Birmingham College of Food, said: “The global pandemic has had a devastating impact upon the food and hospitality sector within the region, a sector which is a
Food aid: New Hub will support for food and hospitality professionals
significant part of the West Midlands economy. “With recent reports indicating
that over 20,000 small businesses may be lost in the West Midlands as a result of the pandemic, the decimated hospitality sector representing a large part of this, we felt we needed to provide some tangible support to those who have lost their jobs or need to develop new skills. “Working with employers such as
the NEC Group, who are looking for support for frontline workers, and the West Midlands Federation of Small Businesses, we will be able to support the recovery and regeneration of the sector moving forward.”
Lewis Walker, head of higher
education at Birmingham College of Food, said: “We are really proud to be at the heart of the West Midlands hospitality sector and be able to support local professionals, providing a range of training, resources and guidance, and encourage the regeneration of this exciting, diverse and crucially important industry within our city.” Alumni from Birmingham College
of Food at the university include Brad Carter, owner of Michelin- starred Carters of Moseley, ‘MasterChef: The Professionals’ finalists Leo Kattou, Monty Stonehewer and Claire Hutchings and Indian celebrity chef Garima Poddar.
Improving access to traineeships
A training and apprenticeship provider is doubling the size of its traineeship programme in Birmingham, to provide more opportunities for young people. Aspiration Training is to expand its
centre in Digbeth and take on several new team members as part of plans to deliver more traineeships. Traineeship programmes help
young people who want to access an apprenticeship or job, but who don’t yet have the appropriate skills or experience. More than 75 per cent of young people
who attend the programme go on to a job or further education. Aspiration Training’s traineeship programme
consists of three components - work preparation training, a work experience placement and support with English and maths if required. This is all provided by the firm’s specialist teams,
who give careers advice and support to help young people into work. Traineeships primarily support 16–24-year- olds who are unemployed, have little to no work experience and have the potential to go into employment or an apprenticeship within 12 months Aspiration Training has a large
network of employers to support work placements, including reputable businesses in sectors such as health and social care, childcare, dental and business services. Aspiration chief executive Iain
Salisbury (pictured) said: “We are really pleased to announce that from Feb 2021, we are
doubling our traineeship delivery in the region. The expansion of our current traineeship provision in Birmingham is great news for the local area, and means we are able to offer even more young people support with preparing for work and finding work placements.”
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