Education business The Strive Group and UK esports organisation LDN UTD have announced ‘UTD EDN’ to help young people secure careers in esports and gaming.
The Strive Group will run eight-week traineeship courses under its new Esports Academy, with the goal to help students to secure a job, apprenticeship or further education. They are aimed at young people from a disadvantaged background or those who didn’t get accepted into university.
The UTD EDN programme will offer individuals a course at LDN UTD’s Centre of Excellence in Camden, with more than 70 hours of work experience with LDN UTD or other esports/relevant businesses.
LDN UTD has announced a partnership with Alienware/Dell Gaming, whose gaming PCs and monitors will be on display in LDN UTD’s Centre Of Excellence.
LDN UTD has also partnered with gaming accessories brand HyperX, whose peripherals will be used by staff and visitors at LDN UTD’s Centre of Excellence, including young persons attending for UTD EDN workshops, the first cohort of which began their journey there on Monday February 21st 2022.
The esports venue is set to offer gamers a safe space to play video games, attend workshops on mental and physical health and fitness, and be offered opportunities relating to further education and employment prospects.
Additionally, HyperX will feature across LDN UTD’s 2022 jersey, be integrated into digital branding assets and future tournaments hosted on LDN UTD’s digital economy platform.
LDN UTD will also be championing HyperX’s core message of ‘We’re All Gamers’ by targeting inclusion in esports through a variety of avenues in 2022, from grassroots tournament initiatives to community focused events, while continuing to support their grassroots and professional esports rosters.
The UTD EDN initiative is an example of one of several partnerships The Strive Group is hoping to strike, with others planned for different regions across the UK, such as Team Norse Thunder (see bottom of this article).
What is a traineeship?
A traineeship is a skills development programme that includes a work placement. It’s designed for young people qualified up to Level 3 to help fill a jobs shortage for those aged 16 to 24 years old.
The UK Government is funding traineeships under the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). Employers providing new work placement opportunities are being offered an incentive payment of £1,000 per learner, for up to 10 learners in each of nine regions.
At the 2021 Budget, the Government announced a further investment of £126m into the programme for the 2021 to 2022 academic year.
More competition in the esports education market
This is the latest announcement in an increasingly competitive esports education market.
In the last few years in the UK alone, we’ve seen several esports degrees launch (including the Staffordshire University course), as well as others at Chichester, Confetti Institute, Portsmouth and more, the Level 3 Esports BTEC launch in colleges courtesy of Pearson and the British Esports Association, and other entities like OverWorld offer gaming courses.
New platform EQ launched a few months ago hoping to help young people secure employment in esports and gaming, British Esports will open a performance and education campus at Riverside Sunderland. Institutions like Queen Mary’s College and the University of Warwick have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on their esports and gaming facilities.
Last week, the University of Warwick received £135,000 to provide esports opportunities to young people in need. And recently, UK esports organisation Guild Esports said it wants to be ‘the largest provider of school-based learning for esports through 2022’.
Some in the esports industry have welcomed a multitude of offerings for students, while others have remained cautious about there being a finite number of esports jobs for the large numbers of students that will be coming through in the coming years.
What Strive and LDN UTD said about the announcement
The Strive Group director of innovation and skills, Ben Drew, said: “Digital careers are at the forefront of all young people’s minds these days; this collaboration brings best in class from the world of esports and from our developmental programme designers to offer a fantastic platform for individuals to take that first step on the ladder of ambition.”
LDN UTD CEO Oliver Weingarten added: “LDN UTD’s values originated on discovering, nurturing, and educating grassroots talent in esports. We’ve extended this ethos to employability, and transferable skills to work in the sector.
“We are therefore pleased to partner with Strive to provide young people with the opportunity to work in our sector and the creative economy and look forward to welcoming the first cohort to our purpose-driven Centre of Excellence in Camden later this month.”
The Strive Group said in a press release it’s excited to be creating developmental pathways in esports/gaming, youth work, horse racing and music.
There’s more info on The Strive Group and The Strive Group’s Esports Academy here.
Strive partners with Team Norse Thunder for Birmingham traineeships
Strive has also partnered with grassroots org Team Norse Thunder’s academy program.
The free six-week program will support students through ‘maths and English qualifications and intensive career planning, all while providing hands-on work experience in the esports industry’.
The work experience portion of the program will be tailored to each student’s career plan, with opportunities to explore marketing, production, finance and other areas of the industry too. At the end of the program, students will have an opportunity to progress onto an esports course at a local college or into an industry job.
The University of Birmingham’s Exchange building will host to the academy program.
Team Norse Thunder’s Dave Scotford said: “This is a massive step not only for us as an organisation, but for the esports scene here in the West Midlands too. There’s so much talent and passion that hasn’t been tapped into in this part of the world, and the academy is about enabling that talent to thrive.”
Related article: Almost 70% of UK parents believe esports can play a positive role in school, but only 32% are happy for their child to have a career in it, finds new education survey by Dell and Intel
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
