Milton Keynes is the only place in Britain to offer these state-of-the-art technology courses

The South Central Institute of Technology (SCIoT), which was set up by MK College, has created a range of new courses that are not yet on offer anywhere else in the country.

They include Internet of Things, Big Data and Visualisation, Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR & AR), fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence and 3-D sculpting for VR and AR.

Head of Curriculum Laura Marulanda-Carter said: “We realised there were a lot of skills which weren’t being covered in the existing curriculum so we decided we needed to put together experiences which are truly relevant to today’s business needs."

The institute is sharing the modules they’ve produced nationally so eventually other colleges around the country will be able to pick up on them, but for now the SCIoT is the only place in Britain where they can be studied in this way.

"Of course, we combine all these with the employability skills which are also so much in need like team working,

good workplace communication and so on, so we can help people become really well-rounded employees,” said Laura.

The current student cohort includes people from a whole host of different backgrounds, and Laura says it could be that economic upheaval caused by the pandemic is concentrating people’s minds upon the future.

“We have an Uber driver, cleaners, a project manager, a hospital porter and security staff studying alongside high-flying graduates including an astrophysicist and a graphic designer, all seeing their future careers in the technology sector," she said,

"There are several new parents too – all looking to make that step-change in their employment prospects.

"Obviously, a lot of people have lost jobs or see their existing work as pretty precarious and realise this is the ideal moment to retrain. Where once there were tech companies and non-tech companies, virtually all businesses have digital needs nowadays and people are catching on to the benefits of getting trained to fill those yawning skills

gaps.”

Research into the jobs market carried out for the SCIoT by Economic Modelling experts, Emsi, found that between 2010 and 2020, digital job growth in the area, serviced by the SCIoT, grew by 21 per cent - outpacing job growth across the country as a whole.

Student Laura Featherstone has recently completed a part-time course in data analytics. She said: “I wanted

to learn some new skills but it was important to be able to fit my studies around my job so the Institute of Technology was the ideal option.

"I work for a technology company and the course I’ve been doing will help me reach my goal of joining our sales operations working in the data team.

"Everything I’ve done here has been really relevant to my working life, especially the assignments where I had to solve real-life industry problems. The Institute’s website gave me all the information I needed and the admission team were very helpful.”

The new courses have now been taken up by educational publishers, Pearson who worked alongside

the SCIoT to produce them.

Anyone interested in finding out more should contact: [email protected]