Aspirational Essex Programme – Employer Accreditation

Aspirational Essex Programme

The Aspirational Essex Programme is a voluntary programme for bold employers, training providers, and residents committed to making a difference to the Greater Essex skills landscape and developing tomorrow’s workforce.  Our ambition is to create a county full of opportunity and growth.  We want to help young people and adults to access quality training provision, career education, and employment support. We also want to empower them to make informed careers choices and enter the local labour market.

With the support of partners and businesses from across Greater Essex we have developed a set of 15 commitments that your organisation can pledge towards.  These commitments include priority areas of action for Essex such as helping with careers education, providing entry level employment opportunities, delivering quality employment practices, and actively supporting the local economy and our communities to thrive. 

As an Employer, you can choose how many commitments you’d like to pledge towards, and although we will provide examples of how you can deliver against these and signpost you to our partners who can support you with your delivery, the commitments have been designed to be flexible to work around the size and capacity of each organisation.   

There are 3 levels to the Aspirational Essex for Employers accreditation, the more commitments delivered the higher the badging awarded, and the more benefits received: 

Why should I engage as an Employer? 

By pledging towards the employer commitments your organisation will not only be joining a community of likeminded employers providing opportunities for inclusive growth in Essex, but you will also be investing in your own business’ future.  Through consultation with businesses via the Local Skills Improvement Plan, we understand that employers across Greater Essex are already experiencing recruitment difficulties such as skills shortages, staff retention and building talent for the future. These are just some of the challenges that the commitments have been developed to support you with.

A key future benefit employers achieving bronze level or over will be that you will have access to our Greater Essex digital careers tool which will support you with your recruitment needs and put you in contact with local candidates.  It will not rely on an individual’s knowledge of careers and education pathways, which can be a barrier for access to opportunities, but instead it will be able to grow labour market supply right here in the county. 

This is an opportunity for you to stand out as an employer.  Demonstrate your community impact by aligning your business practices with Greater Essex priorities and fulfil your corporate social responsibility and social value requirements.

How do I join? 

When you register you can choose as many commitments as you would like. Our team will contact you to create a plan to achieve them. Sign-up to Aspirational Essex for Employers below:   

Or to speak to a member of the team please contact skills@essex.gov.uk

Aspirational Essex for Providers

If you are training provider and are interested in the Aspirational Essex for Providers accreditation process, please visit the website Essex County Council for further information.