New College Durham has opened a new Training and Skills Development facility designed as a shared hub for employers, learners and industry partners across the North East. The facility brings skills provision, employer engagement and talent development under one roof, aimed at helping businesses respond to changing industry demands and build the workforce they need to grow.

The opening, confirmed by NCD, follows a 2024/25 academic year in which the college's Training and Skills Development team secured £14 million in funding and supported 7,000 learners across the region.

New College Durham, a further and higher education college based in Durham, works with partners including the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority, Tees Valley Combined Authority and Jobcentre Plus to deliver apprenticeships, accredited qualifications, short courses and leadership development. Its Training and Skills Development Team's £14 million in funding for 2024/25 reflects the scale of that unit specifically, rather than the college's total turnover.

The structural driver behind the new hub is the region's shift toward devolved skills funding, with the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority now managing an Adult Skills Fund worth £64 million annually; co-locating training delivery inside colleges is intended to help employers draw on that funding more directly rather than navigating it through separate agencies.

Andy Broadbent, principal and chief executive of New College Durham, said the hub reinforces the college's "commitment to putting students and employers at the centre of everything we do," adding that the team is there to make securing training or funding "as straightforward and beneficial as possible."

The facility supports employers of all sizes, from small businesses developing their first structured training plan through to larger organisations securing funding for significant workforce programmes, with delivery spanning apprenticeships, technical skills training and leadership development.

For the sector, the new hub confirms that further education colleges are positioning physical, co-located facilities as the delivery mechanism for regional skills strategy, rather than treating employer engagement as a service bolted onto existing campus provision.

Source: businessdurham.co.uk / northeast-ca.gov.uk