Company profile : SEMTA - the sector skills council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies

Semta is the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies. Industry owned and led, we aim to increase the impact of skilled people throughout the aerospace, automotive, bioscience, electrical, electronics, engineered metal products, maintenance, marine, mechanical and metals sectors. Together, these sectors include 76,000 businesses employing 2,000,000 people, and represent around 9% of Gross Domestic Product and 33% of total UK exports.
We work with employers to understand their skills needs and provide skills solutions, such as immediate help with training and skills development, or campaigning with government and other organisations to ensure employer needs are met.
The Semta group includes The National Skills Academy for Manufacturing which is raising the quality of training provision and Metskill, the strategic skills and performance body for the UK metals industry. The development of UK-wide Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs) is at the heart of Semta’s activities, bringing employers, Government, key agencies, partners and providers together to take action on key skills issues. These agreements map out exactly the skills employers need to ensure maximum productivity and competitiveness, and define and prioritise how these skills will be supplied. Semta has published SSAs for the automotive, aerospace and electronics, marine and bio-science. An SSA for the metals, engineered
metal products, mechanical and electrical sectors will be launched this year.
Semta is also responsible for developing the Sector Qualifications Strategy. This covers from school to professional qualifications including apprenticeships, along with the national occupational standards on which work-based qualifications (NVQs and SVQs) and vocationally related qualifications (VRQs) are based. It is also playing a key role in the development of the 14-19 Diplomas in Engineering, Manufacturing and Science.