Education giant City & Guilds announced today it has acquired its second training provider in two years.

Intertrain, a large provider for the railway industry, is the latest acquisition after Gen2, which claims to be the largest training provider to the UK civil nuclear industry, joined in May 2017.

City & Guilds Group declined to disclose how much the deals were worth due to commercial sensitivity.

Chief executive Chris Jones said the group, which is best known as an awarding organisation, has moved into offering its own training after reflecting “on our purpose – to help people into jobs, develop on the job and progress into the next job”.

“We continue to adapt and evolve with our markets to deliver on that purpose at a dynamic time for individuals, businesses and economies,” he added.

Intertrain, which was established in 1997, delivers over 300 different training courses and assessments, including level 2 and 3 apprenticeships in engineering.

It trains more than 22,000 learners and apprentices every year and has training centres in Enfield, Crayford, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Derby, Warrington, Doncaster, Gateshead, Glasgow and Portsmouth.

The independent learning provider received its first visit from Ofsted earlier this year, and was found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ across all three assessed themes in an early monitoring report published in September 2019.

Director at Intertrain Alex Pond said: “The acquisition provides Intertrain, its employees, customers and learners with significant investment and opportunities in digital learner platforms and blended learning that will meet with the demands of the STEM markets, particularly within rail.”

City & Guilds Group said it expects there to be a substantial increase in learners at Intertrain due to a number of significant infrastructure projects planned for the next decade, including HS2 and Crossrail 2.

Cumbrian-based training provider Gen2 was established in the year 2000 and works with more than 250 employers, including British Steel, Sellafield Ltd and Iggesund, across six sites.

At the time of acquisition in July 2017 it had more than 1,300 apprentices.

It received a grade of ‘outstanding’ in its last Ofsted inspection in 2011.

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  1. Gavin Owen

    I’ll give it 12 months before the redudancies commence across Intertrain & Gen2.

    Justifications from City & Guilds to look out for:
    “to streamline our services”
    “provide the best customer service”
    “fulfil our purpose”
    etc etc