AWS skills collaboration gives rise to two-year pre-university cloud qualification

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is joining forces with the Career Colleges Trust to create a qualification in cloud computing that will be offered through further education institutions and universities across the UK from early next year.

The two-year course will provide students with a pre-university qualification that could either pave the way for them to pursue a full bachelor’s degree in a related topic further down the line or prepare students for entry-level roles in cloud computing.

Its content is being shaped by the Career College Trust, plus a number of other further education curriculum leaders, and will draw on the cloud giant’s longstanding AWS Educate programme.

This initiative enables universities and secondary schools to provide their students with exposure to its technologies by providing service credits. The scheme also offers participants access to curriculum resources to help teach students about cloud computing concepts.

The course will be made available from select further education institutions from early 2020, starting with Barking and Dagenham College in Romford, Essex, before rolling out to universities and other further education facilities across the UK.

The scheme is AWS’s latest bid to help bolster the availability of people with cloud skills in the UK jobs market, and follows last month’s launch of its Get IT programme, which aims to encourage more girls to pursue a career in technology.

The company has previously made commitments to help train 100,000 people across Europe in cloud skills during 2018 alone, and in January 2017 it debuted its Re:Start programme, which is focused on helping schoolchildren, young adults and ex-military personnel acquire cloud skills.

Bev Jones, CEO of the Career Colleges Trust, said there is huge demand for people with cloud skills in the UK jobs market, and therefore a huge need for “high-quality” training in this area.

“We are delighted to now be rolling out this exciting and much-needed qualification across both our own digital career colleges and much wider into other universities and colleges across the UK.”

Ken Eisner, director of worldwide education programmes and head of AWS Educate, said this is the first time such a programme has been delivered outside the US, but the demand for cloud skills is universal.

“Building a cloud-ready workforce is an urgent challenge and an unprecedented opportunity,” he said. “Through the commitment of the Career Colleges Trust and its innovative member institutions, we are excited to take our cloud computing academic programme to the UK.

“The speed, the scale and reach of this programme can serve as a model for opening career pathways in technology for diverse populations across the UK and beyond.”