Durham University: University to offer free Skills Bootcamps as part of a national scheme

Skills Bootcamps are flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, giving people the opportunity to build up sector specific skills and fast track to an interview with a local employer.
How it works

An Institute of Coding (IoC) funded programme at the university named TechUP, will be offering two industry-focussed, cohort-customised 14-week Skills Bootcamps – one on data engineering and the other on software development. 

The Skills Bootcamps will be led by Professor Sue Black and Professor Alexandra Cristea from our Department of Computer Science and will include weekly online lectures and workshops, drop-in support sessions, networking events, guest speakers from the industry and one-to-one mentoring.

The flexible Skills Bootcamps will average around 16.5 hours of weekly study time and following the conclusion, participants will have the opportunity to take part in an interview with a local employer.
Collaborative working

 The Skills Bootcamps being offered by us form part of an IoC-led programme, where several UK universities are collaborating to offer a total of 20 Skills Bootcamps nationwide.

We have worked closely with the IoC to ensure each of our Skills Bootcamps meet the needs of the participants who are looking to up-skill and boost their employability but also that they provide the skills local employers are seeking.

The Skills Bootcamps is a national movement and they have been developed by the Department for Education as part of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Plan for jobs.


Previous success

TechUP is no stranger to success after their pilot programme called TechUPWomen, which concluded at the beginning of 2020, was an Impact Award winner.

The programme, which was created by Prof. Black in collaboration with Prof. Cristea, was set up to retrain women in the technology sector and half of the 96 participants have been successful in securing a new job or role using their newly acquired tech skills to date.