Industry joins forces for new hub to 'turbo-charge skills'

The UK’s leading advertising and marketing trade bodies have joined forces to tackle the industry’s skills and talent crisis with the launch of a new online hub, designed to showcase professional training and development opportunities for people working in the sector.

Led by the Advertising Association, the new hub, which has been created in partnership with Adwanted UK, showcases over 500 professional training courses and qualifications from AA members and industry stakeholders including the DMA, the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the IPA, ISBA and IAB UK.

Training courses and qualifications cover a range of skills including creativity, strategy and data, and have been curated to serve three distinct audiences – those entering the advertising, marketing, and media industry for the first time; those wishing to progress their careers within the industry; and L&D and HR leads within organisations requiring support to upskill their teams.

The Advertising & Marketing Training Hub is a result of the AA’s Talent Report “Investing In Our Talent’s Future”, which highlighted the industry’s need to address talent shortages through two key areas – better attraction and recruitment of new talent, and increased development and retention of existing talent.

The report, informed by UK advertising thinktank Credos and a special Talent Task Force comprising more than 20 HR leads, was published in 2023.

It forms a key part of AA’s three-year strategy focused on talent, which runs through to 2025. Other actions in the strategy include the “Hybrid Working Report”, published in April 2024; a campaign to promote advertising as a career choice to young people; and support for increased uptake of the apprenticeship scheme, following a campaign to reform the levy.

AA president Alessandra Bellini said: “Our industry will only ever be as good as the people who work in it. Investment in professional development is paramount, whatever the level of experience, and this new training hub will help people, and their managers, find the very best courses and certificates to support career progression.

“Advertising is a tremendously fast-moving and exciting industry to work in – our goal with this hub is to help turbo-charge the skills needed for our industry’s talent to thrive, compete and succeed.”

The hub was developed by Adwanted UK and sits on its Connected platform, the UK’s largest, independent source of media data, which means all current users will have access as part of their subscription. The website is also available to the general public, who are required to create a specific login to view the directory.

Adwanted UK chief executive Greg Grimmer said: “At Adwanted, we strive to champion and nurture talent within the media and marketing sector through a range of initiatives aimed at attracting new talent into the industry and providing support for those already in place.

“Our partnership with the Advertising Association on this project aligns seamlessly. We are proud and excited to unveil this brilliant catalogue of accredited training courses available in a single, easy to use site. We believe this new resource will greatly benefit individuals at every level by providing easy access to training for their specific needs.”

The hub will be updated with new and relevant courses on an ongoing basis.