About the Mayor’s Skills Academies Programme

The Mayor’s Skills Academies Programme aims to support Londoners hardest hit by the pandemic into good work in sectors key to London’s recovery and long-term economic growth, as part of the London Recovery Programme.

The total investment of the programme is £44m and it is funded by the Mayor of London (£23m), the London Economic Action Partnership (LEAP, £20.6m), the NHS (0.25M), and the Health Education England (£0.25m). LEAP brings together entrepreneurs, businesses, London Councils and the Mayor to support economic growth and job creation in the capital.

The programme will do this by coordinating and quality marking training in London (including adult education) and providing bespoke support to help newly skilled people into work in our priority sectors. It also builds on the work of the Mayor’s Workforce Integration Network (WIN), which was established to address the structural barriers that prevent underrepresented groups from accessing high quality work opportunities across the different sectors in London. 

The objectives of the Mayoral Skills Academies programme are: 

• to help fill vacancies in priority sectors with skilled people 
• to raise the profile of these sectors for potential applicants
• to get Londoners into good work (direct employment, apprenticeships, traineeships or self-employment/freelance work) in the sectors identified  
• to support the further education (FE) sector to deliver industry relevant provision 
• to gain insights into the priority sectors and to support specific groups of Londoners, including young black men, to overcome barriers to entry into the sectors identified 
• to support employers and FE colleges to address structural barriers to engagement, recruitment, retention and progression for under-represented groups in their industry/workforce, as outlined in the Workforce Integration Network (WIN) toolkit.