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Academy Crosses The Tyne
Contact centres in the region are to benefit from a new training centre at Cobalt Business Park in North Tyneside.
The facility, which opens to learners in late October, is run by City of Sunderland College’s North East Contact Centre Academy and will provide people with the skills needed to succeed in the region’s bustling contact centre industry.
The new site is close to several major contact centres, including GE Money, and offers recognised qualifications up to foundation degree level. .
The new centre on Cobalt aims to build on the success of the existing Contact Centre Academy at Doxford International Business Park - the only one of its kind in the U.K - and credited as a Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) in the region.
Susan Walker, operational leader at the academy, explained the reasons behind the expansion: “We started to see people coming from further afield to the academy.Many courses at our current location were full so our expansion across the Tyne seemed a natural next step that is proving really popular.
“From Cobalt we can continue to raise the profile of contact centre careers by providing professional training from introductory level for new recruits through to management training for those aspiring to career progression.”
Tyne and Wear Development Company recommended a 3,000 sq m site at Cobalt Business Exchange which was an ideal match for the academy’s requirements due to its state-of-the-art telecommunications facilities.
Susan added: “We had a rough idea of the area we wanted to expand into, Tyne and Wear Development Company clarified our needs then showed us some possible sites that would suit our requirements. The Cobalt site was perfect and exactly the right location for us, it couldn’t have been better.”
Deborah Fletcher from Tyne and Wear Development Company said: “This is a hugely competitive industry. The new training centre will help to ensure local workers have the skills and experience to meet the needs of tomorrow’s customers and remain ahead of the competition. It’s in a great location.”
The contact centre sector provides in excess of 50,000 jobs in the North East, making a major contribution to the region’s economy. Well known names such as EDF Energy, Barclays and T-Mobile all have bases here.
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