Shard Southwark vocational programme
The £5m Shard Southwark vocational programme will ensure Southwark residents will directly benefit from the job opportunities in the tallest building in the UK.
The programme is a collaborative venture between the council and Shard developers Sellar, who both share a vision to ensure that the landmark development can be used to transform the lives of borough residents.
The programme has three key objectives:
- To provide training and employment opportunities for local people during the construction of the building
- To provide bespoke training courses for local people to match the job opportunities in the completed building
- To create an exciting outreach programme to ensure local people have the best chances of accessing jobs in the building.
The programme will be delivered by a coalition of key local providers, including Southwark College and Southwark Works.
The variety of opportunities is a direct result of the mix of organisations moving into the completed building which is dubbed a "vertical city", from jobs in the viewing galleries, hotel, offices, restaurants, and security services.
The key to unlocking opportunities in the Shard is through close collaboration between the council, developer, training providers and future occupiers in the building. Managers from the Shangri-La Hotel and developer Sellar are working closely with the college two years before the building opens to help design courses and to guarantee interviews for local people.
Most press coverage of the Shard project has reported the iconic nature of the building, but little mention has been made of the substantial regeneration benefits created by the development. In addition to £25m being spent on a new bus station, train station concourse, public plaza and connections to the underground, the £5m vocational programme will ensure the building has a far reaching impact.
As well as forging strong links between the tenants of the building and the local community, the programme is investing in the delivery of cutting edge training environments. New training facilities are to be constructed which move away from classroom based instruction to "real work" environments, with commercial workshops to provide hands on vocational training directly linked to Shard jobs.
Timeline
The £5m programme will be delivered incrementally over the coming three years. In the first phase a programme of construction training, apprenticeships and employment outreach will take place during the construction of the tallest building in the UK.
In tandem with the construction programme, works will commence at Southwark College to fit-out new workshops for bespoke training courses which will feed directly into new job opportunities in the building.
As the building nears completion, an outreach programme will be developed by Southwark Works, START jobs, and other employment brokerage organisations.
For more information about the programme please contact Dan Taylor on 020 7525 5450.
