The ECITB has awarded £300,000 in funding to boost capacity at an engineering construction skills training facility in Stallingborough in North East Lincolnshire
CATCH, a engineering construction training provider near Grimsby, has been awarded £300,000 from the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board’s (ECITB) £1m investment in Regional Skills Hubs.
The funding will allow CATCH to upgrade its existing welding, pipefitting and electrical training facilities. This will in turn allow the centre to increase learning capacity by 100% over the next two years.
The Humber Skills Plan seeks to increasing training output by 1000% in the next five year.
The first phase of CATCH’s expansion plan is a £2m joint venture of refits between the industry-led training centre, initial investors Phillips 66 Limited, VPI Immingham power station and Harbour Energy, alongside the ECITB’s funding, taking place over summer 2024.
Phase two will see the development of a new £60m National Net Zero Training Centre by 2029, which will look to deliver 1,000 learners a year.
David Talbot, chief executive at CATCH, said: “As we embark on this exciting journey, we are extremely grateful for the support of our industry partners and the ECITB, aligning with our vision to provide a pipeline of skilled workers for the Humber region’s engineering construction projects.”
ECITB investment seeks to boost engineering construction skills to aid both local industry and national decarbonisation efforts
ECITB chief executive Andrew Hockey said: “The ECITB is delighted to support CATCH as it continues to develop a pipeline of trained, skilled workers for major engineering construction projects in the Humber region.
“We know from the Labour Forecasting Tool (LFT), launched in December, that the labour demand gap for new workers in the engineering construction industry will get wider with an estimated shortfall of 40,000 workers by 2028.
“The Regional Skills Hub grant is targeted specifically on capacity-building projects in the UK’s industrial heartlands that will directly increase the flow of workers into the industry.”
The ECITB is keen to collaborate with other decarbonisation projects
The ECITB is keen to work with more clients, contractors and training providers across the six major industrial cluster regions to invest in growing the number of skilled workers needed for other major decarbonisation projects.
The cluster regions are the Black Country, East Coast (comprising Teesside and Humber), north-west England, Scotland, South Wales and the Solent.
Funding of between £50,000 and £500,000 will be awarded to eligible projects that meet set criteria, including the need to match ECITB grant funding with investment from industry partners.
To find out more, you can contact chief operating officer Andy Brown at andy.brown@ecitb.org.uk or David Nash, director of strategy and policy at david.nash@ecitb.org.uk
