Professional services academy launched by BMET
BIRMINGHAM Metropolitan College (BMET) has created a new professional services skills centre on its Sutton Coldfield campus.
Recruitment for the Greater Birmingham Professional Services Academy starts this month and the scheme gets under way in September, with a curriculum focused on qualifications in law, finance, accounting, banking and insurance.
The venture has already been backed by big names from the city’s professional services sector. Deutsche Bank, Gateley, GVA, KPMG, Lloyds TSB and Wesleyan Assurance Society have signed on as official partners.
Each will support BMET by providing high-level professional support for the students, including internships at their Birmingham offices, mentoring by senior staff, workshop sessions, and ‘guru’ lectures at the campus by members of their executive teams.
The academy is also being backed by Solihull-based consumer finance firm LaSer UK.
BMET’s principal and chief executive Dame Christine Braddock DBE said: “Traditionally, it’s been left to individual organisations to devise their own recruitment strategies, and they haven’t come together to portray themselves as an entity.
“However, we’ve seen in recent years that other sectors – engineering, creative, health and digital come immediately to mind – have strengthened their response to recruitment challenges.
“At the same time, I thought many local youngsters were missing out on stimulating and well-paid jobs in professional services, because they wrongly believed that it was a sector which welcomed only graduates.”
BMET has received backing for the venture by Steve Hollis, the deputy chairman of the Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEP and formerly KPMG’s Midland regional chairman.
He said: “I share Christine’s view that the professional services sector needs a much greater profile, and such professions as accountancy and banking also can’t continue to be solely the domain of middle class kids who have been to university.”
