5 March 2024
As part of ‘Love our Colleges Week’, Weston College as the lead partner for the West of England Institute of Technology, showcased its state-of-the-art ‘Networking and Cyber’ Lab on Friday, allowing learners to practice networking, and to finesse their skills within cloud computing and virtualisation. The impressive hands-on digital facility, is based within the College’s University Centre Weston campus, (which was awarded TEF Gold status in 2023, placing it within the top 20% of degree provision in the UK – one of only six colleges nationally to achieve the status).
In line with industry, the Lab is Cyber Essentials Plus accredited, with its own independent line which has created an isolated network environment. Twenty four learners work within the Lab at any one time, and the development of this industry led space has enabled a highly immersive Networking and Cyber pathway for the College’s hugely successful Digital and Technology Solutions (DaTS) degree apprenticeship programme.
Employer partners who utilise the DaTS apprenticeship to boost their workforce pipelines include Airbus, the Ministry of Defence, MBDA, Babcock, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, EDF Energy, Synoptix, L3Harris, National Grid, and QinetiQ. The WEIoT will also be partnering with Boeing to deliver their future DaTS programmes – a solution to their workforce development requirements, ultimately boosting the pipeline of people working in science and technology jobs.
Seeing the Networking and Cyber’ Lab for the first time was Weston’s MP John Penrose, who added “It’s great to see how Weston College and its University Centre have developed such an impressive technology and digital facility, using Government funding from the West of England Institute of Technology. It’s the latest example of Weston College improving local skills so employers want to set up shop here, and students have a great choice of high-skill, high-paying careers too”.
