Award-winning Bath coding bootcamp iO Academy is expanding into the North of England with the launch of an outlet in Sheffield.
Originally known as Mayden Academy, it was launched in 2015 by Bath healthcare firm Mayden to train its own developers to sustain its growth.
Having rebranded as iO Academy last November, it has now partnered with newly launched EyUp Skills to open in Sheffield.
EyUp is the latest venture by Sheffield-born entrepreneur David Richards, founder of the Yorkshire and Silicon Valley-based tech firm WANdisco.
The partnership is formed around the vital role the tech industry has in providing a direct and meaningful impact on the UK’s digital skills shortage, bringing real life experience to tech training.
This ensures that new entrants to the industry have the up-to-date experience that tech employers need most, as well as making a career in tech more accessible to a wider range of people, helping to make the industry as a whole more inclusive.
The move comes after a recent government paper found that the “existing university curriculum in Computer Science is falling short of expectations and not meeting the needs of employers seeking tech talent”.
It also revealed that, despite the UK’s need for new tech talent, Computer Science graduates were more likely to be unemployed than other graduates.
The partnership aims to tackle these issues by drawing on decades of experience in the fast-paced tech industry.
Mayden founder Chris May launched iO Academy as an innovative solution to the UK-wide skills crisis that was impacting Mayden’s own need for new talent in a fast-growing business.
Using the expertise of the existing development team, a course was created that built around a solid foundation of programming principles, extensive practical experience, and the latest technologies that were most in demand by employers.
Today iO Academy’s fully immersive 16-week course trains students in the most in-demand technologies and methodologies used in software development.
Chris said: “As owner of a tech company myself, I know from experience the challenges companies face in finding new talent.
“We started iO Academy as a solution to this problem. We came up with a practical course that, six years later, has proven that it really works in getting complete newcomers to be industry-ready in a short timeframe.
“We are delighted to be partnering with EyUp to move into Sheffield as our second UK location, and to share our successful model with people of all backgrounds who want to build careers in this exciting sector.”
EyUp has been launched with the same ethos of innovation, expertise and accessibility. Its mission is to create software developers, generate jobs and invest in start-ups across the North.
iO Academy director Mike Oram said demand for the course soared last year after it was named as the sixth best coding bootcamp in the world by SwitchUp, the group that collects and analyses thousands of reviews from bootcamp students and alumni.
“We’ve been looking for an additional location to make the course even more accessible, so we are delighted to be able to make this move north and support more UK regions as exciting and innovative tech centres outside London,” he said.
”iO Academy and EyUp both come from successful, forward-thinking tech companies that know exactly what the tech industry needs.
“With our expertise in the industry, we are delighted to be working together on giving people exactly the right skills to fill the talent gap in tech.”
WANdisco and EyUp founder David Richards said local and global economies were crying out for people with the right skills – latest annual figures show more than 150,000 digital tech job openings in Yorkshire and 4,400 in Sheffield.
“EyUp will teach people to code, help them find jobs as developers, nurture new start-ups and contribute to social and economic wellbeing,” he added.
“Education should be the foundation of regeneration and EyUp will help individuals realise their potential and spread success across our communities.
“We want to provide a meaningful alternative to university by offering more hands-on experience in four months than students would typically get in a three-year degree programme.”
The first Sheffield course starts in August and is now open for applications.
