Training one-stop-shop opens its virtual doors to small business

The skills council for the ICT industry, e-skills, has officially launched a new internet resource designed to be a training one-stop-shop for SMEs today.

The site, available at www.e-skills.com/training, hosts a directory of more than 10,000 public and private training courses than can be searched based on postcode, qualification, keyword and type of learning.

With an IT market that looks to be picking up and bosses finding it difficult to get staff with the right skills, making sure workers are up-to-date with their IT training is becoming more important than ever.

However, unlike bigger companies with correspondingly bigger wallets and resources, SMEs often don't have the time or budget to get their staff on training programmes. Terry Watts, chief operating officer for e-skills, said that SMEs "are often too busy worrying about survival to worry about the nicer points of their five year strategy".

He added that the small and medium-sized market was particularly difficult to serve, due to the sheer variety of firms that come under the SME banner, but hoped that the site would enable users to home in on and answer their particular training needs.

As well as directory of training providers, details on funding for training and careers information, the site also includes a jargon buster to help users with unclear terms and aims to be written in clear English so that staff at every level can have access to training resources.