UK-based esports organisation Guild Esports have announced the launch of Guild College to provide a new career pathway for young people into apprenticeships, professional roles and higher education related to the esports industry.
As part of this new venture, Guild have entered a four-year partnership with SCL Education, a UK-based provider of post-16 further education specialising in sports, which will provide a one-year BTEC Level 2 Diploma in Esports and a further two-year BTEC Esports Level 3 Extended Diploma as a progression route.
These BTEC Esports qualifications were first designed and launched by education supplier Pearson and the British Esports Federation a couple of years ago, and SCL is one provider of them. We also understand this course must be taught in person and not online.
Guild and SCL are using ‘Enigmaz’ branding to offer the esports qualifications to students. In May 2022, SCL Enigmaz previously announced a partnership with separate UK esports organisation Tenstar, with the org ‘providing weekly training and interaction with a variety of esports and media professionals’ according to a previous press release.
According to the SCL Enigmaz website, its team consists of Stuart Allen, Kate Lou, Angel Jennings, Belal Miah and Jo Wade. The latter was previously a director at Target Recruitment & Training Ltd and Enigmaz Ltd, companies that provided a respective esports diploma and traineeship for Adamo Gaming, a business that was linked with Tenstar.
In a press release, Guild Esports said it will receive a four-figure sum from SCL Education for every student enrolled into the course.
Esports News UK understands an education centre gets £4,000 per student to cover ALL the courses they take at 16-18, so Guild’s solitary course would represent a lower percentage of this amount per year.
SCL Education projections for total student intake for the course in the first year of the programme, based on their existing comparable courses, is 125 individual learners.
This funding will also stem in part from a subcontracting agreement with SCL Education, which has a contract with the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), an executive agency of the UK Government sponsored by the Department for Education.
SCL Education, as providers of BTEC qualifications for clubs like Leeds United College and the West Ham Foundation, will manage the programme on behalf of Guild, which the org said is ‘resulting in minimal additional spend or increased headcount at the company’. The news comes a few months after Guild Esports announced job cuts and a £5m loss.
The course will be delivered through 600 guided learning hours per student over the course of the academic year, in line with UK official further education study programme requirements.
The company’s facilities will support the delivery of the esports BTEC qualification including student access to Guild’s HQ facility in Shoreditch for technical and practical workshops.
Guild opened its HQ this year and struck a reported £2m-per-year naming rights deal with Sky to see the facility named the Sky Guild Gaming Centre.
Enrolment for the course is underway, with the programme welcoming its first cohort of students in September 2023.
“While the esports further education sector in the UK is fast growing, regular access to the state-of-theart facilities of a fully-fledged global esports organisation is a first for a post-16 esports course and something no other learners in the country currently have available to them. Guild College is proud to offer this experience to students.”
Kal Hourd, Guild Esports
Guild said in a press release that the new BTEC qualification is skills-focused and will support the creation of long-term careers in the growing esports industry both in the UK and internationally.
SCL Education will also support Guild Academy growth through the delivery of ‘elite programmes’ focused on pro-player development, and community outreach programmes with the goal of positively impacting 1,000 children through esports in 2023.
Kal Hourd, chief executive at Guild Esports, said: “Our pioneering course leverages Guild’s position as one of Europe’s leading team organisations and will furnish learners with the opportunity to obtain a Level Two Diploma to support their career ambitions in a fast-growing industry worth more than £1 billion.
“By getting involved in grassroots esports development in the UK, Guild will also support a pipeline of talent both in terms of the star players of tomorrow and future esports business leaders.
“While the esports further education sector in the UK is fast growing, regular access to the state-of-theart facilities of a fully-fledged global esports organisation is a first for a post-16 esports course and something no other learners in the country currently have available to them. Guild College is proud to offer this experience to students.”
Stuart Allen, group director of operations and principal of education, SCL Education, said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with industry leaders, Guild Esports, to deliver our BTEC Level 2 Diploma in Esports. An organisation made up of passionate people with the shared mission of delivering a unique learning experience, our learners have a bright future ahead of them in an industry full of great career opportunities.”
Guild Esports first announced it would be making an education move at the start of the year, when it said it wanted to be ‘the largest provider of school-based learning for esports through 2022’.
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.
