How can the Future of Work programme help?

It is a council priority to nurture connections between people, business, innovators, to enable them to take advantage of the economic opportunities – now and in the future – and to maximise good local outcomes.

We already provide a wide range of advice and support to help businesses adopt digital and energy efficient solutions and improve their growth potential. At the same time, we’re seeking to connect residents to skills and jobs and developing a skills-enriched creative curriculum for young people to ensure they are ‘future ready’.

We are aiming for ‘good growth’ – that is, economic growth that delivers positive impacts for society and the environment. In practice, that means improving job outcomes for economically inactive residents, increasing opportunities for under-represented groups in leadership and management positions, reducing the carbon footprint across the city and ensuring Southampton-based businesses are securing contracts from local procurement activities.

But we also recognise that conventional models of ‘work’ and ‘business’ are changing. An economic culture that thrives on creativity, agility, and purpose to deliver better outcomes for the city requires a change in mindset, tactics, and collaborative efforts.

We’ve therefore shifted our focus to deliver a range of projects and initiatives to achieve this:

• Producing the city’s first skills framework to determine future skills needs across the city
• Testing an end-to-end approach to the Government’s Essential Digital Skills Framework, blended with ESOL and pre-employment support
• Assisting local businesses to adopt modern and digitised business techniques
• Piloting a VR soft skills solution to improve residents’ work readiness
• Prototyping a digital solution through the Cities of Learning initiative that:
  • Connects supply and demand dimensions of the skills ecosystem
  • Uses digital badges to recognise and validate all types of learning, training, and experiential activities
  • Formulates pathways grouped by digital badges for residents to secure better opportunities

This is the Future of Work. We have taken our first steps with our Future of Work summit and invite you to find out more in this video and join us in becoming a future ready employer: