Marine Skills Centres

The development of a network of three Marine Skills Centres across the region in Poole, Plymouth and Falmouth is central to increasing the skill base of the marine sector and to help improve the performance of marine businesses.

The primary aim is to address the real needs of the large number of small and micro-businesses that make up the sector by providing innovative, dedicated and demand-led marine training services and facilities.

As a first step, each Marine Skills Centre is working with ‘prime’ industrial partners who require the initial throughput of training to get the business started.

Marine South West, using public funds, principally South West Regional Development Agency grants, supplies each centre’s training equipment and meets ongoing facilities, marketing and other overhead costs for an agreed period.

The Marine Skills Centres are not another training organisation in their own right. Training is delivered by a prime training partner and a range of other providers to meet local demand using the facilities of the centre or at other locations more suited to meet the demand like the customers’ own premises.