Barcelona, Spain—
The City of Barcelona, Spain, in collaboration with the Local Development Agency, Barcelona Activa, has set up the ‘Barcelona IT Academy’ to develop and upgrade the digital skills of the population.
The project has a specific focus on women who are under-represented in occupations in the digital sector.
The Barcelona IT Academy was established in 2017 and provides a variety of learning opportunities for students and professionals working outside the IT sector in Barcelona. In the context of the digital transition of societies and labour markets as well as the increasing shortage of digital skills, the key objective of the Barcelona IT Academy is to promote job opportunities, reinforce competitiveness, promote social inclusion, and reduce the gender gap in the digital sector.
The IT Academy offers reskilling courses and training opportunities for students and professionals working outside the IT sector to improve their digital skills and improve labour market opportunities. The Academy uses an innovative learning method based on mentoring activities with an expert throughout the learning process. The coursework can be adapted to individual needs and progress and can include access to open educational resources, participation in simulation projects and peer-to-peer learning among students. Thanks to its flexibility, new students can join the programme throughout the year, as soon as other students have found a job. Other training programmes offer lifelong learning activities addressed to people who already have IT knowledge.
The Academy also offers online resources that give students access to a wide range of high-quality information at a low cost, while simultaneously enabling individuals to monitor their own progress. The training of new IT professionals lasts around 350 hours and focuses on the most requested profiles in Barcelona: Front and Back-End developers, Mobile developers and net developers. For existing IT professionals, the IT Academy provides short-term training courses (maximum of 20 hours), masterclasses with renowned professionals as well as networking and peer learning meetings among IT professionals.
The IT Academy collaborates with IT companies in Barcelona to define training modules and provide job opportunities. In addition, Barcelona Activa cooperates with universities and other academic institutions operating in the technology sector and public and private institutions to promote Barcelona’s work in the technology sector.
Since the Academy started in 2018, more than 1500 people have participated in different activities. Slightly less than half of the participants (43%) are women, and among them, the majority is aged between 25 and 40. The completion rate is high (80%) among the 237 people who have taken part in reskilling training from the Academy. Seven in ten people who finished the programme have found a job in the IT sector, 45% of their job contracts are permanent, and are offered wages significantly higher than the average. Furthermore, from a public policy perspective, the programme is cost-effective as the social security contributions of the new workers is three times higher than the cost of training.
The effective engagement with the IT business sector in Barcelona and the trust of companies in the quality of the training provision are among the main success factors of the programme. In addition, the programme has been successful in addressing the challenge of designing a relevant training programme to meet the needs of the specific target groups and the labour market. The next challenge for the project is ensuring a proper scale-up process and developing an effective communication strategy to reach more people.
OECD (2022), "Future-proofing adult learning systems in cities and regions: A policy manual for local governments", OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Papers, No. 2022/03, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/11fa26cc-en.
