Bristol gaming company helps design new courses to tackle "dire talent shortage"
New courses in gaming software, digital marketing, data science, AI and User Experience will soon be on offer to help train more people to work in the region’s growing digital and creative businesses.
The courses, created by Next Generation, Bath Spa University, and the University of the West of England will be delivered with help from Bristol-based games developer Opposable Games with recruitment starting next month.
The courses are part of a £2 million investment by the West of England Combined Authority, announced by the Mayor during the region’s first Jobs and Skills Summit.
Metro Mayor, Dan Norris, said: “There is increasing demand for skilled workers in our digital businesses that are struggling to find the talent they need. These courses delivered in the region will help to train more people for our growing businesses and have been designed to attract people that perhaps haven’t previously thought about a career in this area.”
Ben Trewhella is managing director of Bristol-based Opposable Games. He said: “The games industry is already the largest entertainment industry in the world by revenue and employment and is booming. However, there is a dire skills shortage with local companies now employing international staff.
“Learning to program games technology is engaging and incremental, with immediate feedback, and unlocks high paying careers in the progressive and exciting games industry and wider engineering and technology fields. We are very proud to be working with an ambitious group of employers and look forward to helping a new generation of tech workers find careers they can be passionate about.”
Recruitment will open later this month with courses running until March 2022. The training has been developed to attract a wide range of people from diverse groups that may not have previously considered working in this sector.
