Blog: Maritime Skills Commission celebrates being two years old
Today, Friday 1 July, marks two years since Maritime UK was tasked with establishing the Maritime Skills Commission and what a journey it has been.
The Maritime Skills Commission (MSC) was established to ensure that the maritime sector has a pipeline of talented people to serve all parts of the sector covering shipping, ports, leisure marine, engineering, science and professional services.
The Commission is chaired by Professor Graham Baldwin, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire, and was established in 2020 by the Department for Transport and Maritime UK as part of the implementation of Maritime 2050. The Commission reports to the Maritime Minister and the National Council of Maritime UK and has seven main objectives all targeted towards improving the skills and employability in the UK maritime sector. The Commission is formed of 19 Commissioners and we are delighted to advise that Graham Baldwin has agreed to Chair the Commission for the next two years.
Since the first meeting of the Commission in 2020, progress has included:
- Establishing a dedicated portal to share the Scheme of Work and progress on work streams.
- Publishing the Labour Market Intelligence Report in August 2020.
- Undertaking a Seafarer Cadet Review and publishing the findings and recommendations. Read the Report here.
- Following on from the recommendations in the Seafarer Cadet Review, the Cadet Training & Modernisation (CT&M) Programme was established in 2021 and progress can be found on the dedicated portal page.
- Publishing the Digital Learning Report to share lessons learnt of training providers moving to online learning during the pandemic.
- Creating Exporting Maritime Education and Training Directory and running a series of webinars with the Department for International Trade. A series of webinars for 2022-23 will be published and shared soon.
- Establishing a work stream to focus on Future Ports and publishing the Future Ports Workforce Research Report in March 2022.
- Sharing two annual reports marking progress on the objectives in 2020 and 2021. The next Annual Report will be launched in Autumn 2022.
- Establishing a Careers into Maritime Ashore Project and developing a new qualification, now available on Open Award.
- Establishing a workstream focusing on People and Behaviours.
- Hosting the first evidence sessions on Green Skills online and at COP26. This resulted in the Skills for Green Jobs Position Paper and recommendations being launched in June 2022. The Skills for Green Jobs Position Paper sets out how the Maritime Skills Commission defines ‘green’ in reference to Green Skills and Green Jobs. Read the position paper here.
- During the past two years, the Commission has held a series of Webinars and Podcasts featuring the Commissioners as well as events with stakeholders.
If you would like to keep up to date with the work that the Maritime Skills Commission does, register here.