1. Home
  2. Business in East Sussex
  3. Business support in East Sussex
  4. Employment, skills and training
  5. Skills East Sussex (SES)

Skills East Sussex (SES)

Skills East Sussex (SES) is the county’s strategic body for employment and skills. The group aims to improve local employment and skills levels to increase economic prosperity in East Sussex. Skills East Sussex uses a firm evidence base to agree and set priorities. The group provides direction for the county’s approach to employment and skills.

SES has agreed the following six strategic priorities for 2021-2030:

  • Priority 1: Ensuring that national policy and funding supports the delivery of learning and skills in East Sussex
  • Priority 2: Enabling our Further Education (FE)/Higher Education (HE) establishments to recruit excellent educators with specialist technical knowledge
  • Priority 3: Improving our digital skills and digital inclusion
  • Priority 4: Upskilling our workforce to increase regional productivity
  • Priority 5: Supporting the unemployed and unqualified
  • Priority 6: Skills for a Net Zero future

SES has identified six priority sectors within the county. Work on the priorities is taken forward through the sector task groups. There are sector based Task Groups for the following:

  • Construction and Civil Engineering
  • Creative, Cultural, Digital and Media
  • Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing
  • Health and Social Care
  • Visitor and Cultural Economy
  • Land, Agriculture and Environmental

Read about the work of the Skills East Sussex sector task groups.

Skills East Sussex also has working groups looking at key areas across all employment and skills sectors. These are:

  • Apprenticeships East Sussex
  • Adult Learning Network
  • Net Zero

More information on apprenticeships, including support for businesses, can be found at Apprenticeships East Sussex.

Skills East Sussex has oversight for the East Sussex Careers Hub, linking education with the local economy to inspire and prepare young people for entering the world of work.

Board members

The Board includes several leading figures from employment and education in East Sussex. These include:

  • The Chair, Diana Garnham
  • Chief Executive of East Sussex County Council, Becky Shaw
  • Two County Councillors
  • Senior Managers from the county’s post-16 colleges
  • Senior Managers from the University of Brighton
  • Local employers representing different sectors in the county

Chair of Skills East Sussex – Diana Garnham

Diana was CEO of the Science Council until 2015. She introduced professional registration for scientists at Chartered, Registered and Technician levels. She also developed a science and maths careers campaign and a programme to improve diversity in science employment.

She supports activities to widen participation in STEM and to increase the work readiness for students from further education (FE) and higher education (HE). She is an independent member of the Construction Industry Training Board. She is President of the King’s College London Alumni Association. She is Chair of the university’s Alumni Advisory Group. Until October 2019 she was a governor of East Sussex College Group. She had previously been on the corporation of Sussex Coast College. She is now an Enterprise Adviser at the Hastings campus of the East Sussex College Group. This is a very important role within the East Sussex Careers Hub.

The University of Leicester awarded Diana with an honorary Doctorate of Laws for services to science and society in 2013. She is a Freeman of the City of London for her work on science careers. In February 2017, the University of Brighton awarded Diana with an honorary Doctorate of Science for her work on diversity in science.

Chair, Diana Garnham
Chair, Diana Garnham

Skills Capital Fund - Hastings and Rother

Under the previous Government, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) awarded funding to Hastings Borough Council and Rother District Council. This funding is to be used in Hastings and Rother for capital projects for:

  • Improving access to health and wellbeing services and supporting voluntary sector
  • Improving transport infrastructure
  • Promoting economic growth and skills development

The Skills Capital Fund forms part of this funding allocation. This part of the funding is being overseen by the Employability and Skills team at East Sussex County Council, who have strategic oversight of employment and skills activity in the county.

Fund guidance notes for each area can be found below:

All application forms must be sent to SkillsEastSussex@eastsussex.gov.uk by midday on Friday 6th September 2024.

Any questions must be received via SkillsEastSussex@eastsussex.gov.uk by 9am on Tuesday 13th August 2024.

SES constitutional documents

Statement of priorities

Skills East Sussex (SES) has used research conducted by East Sussex County Council into the employment and skills needs within the East Sussex economy and has identified and agreed the following 6 strategic priorities for 2021-2030.

  • Priority 1: Ensuring that national policy and funding supports the delivery of learning and skills in East Sussex
  • Priority 2: Enabling our FE/HE establishments to recruit excellent educators with specialist technical knowledge
  • Priority 3: Improving our digital skills and digital inclusion
  • Priority 4: Upskilling our workforce to increase regional productivity
  • Priority 5: Supporting the unemployed and unqualified
  • Priority 6: Skills for a Net Zero future

SES brings together employers, education providers and stakeholders to tackle employment and skills challenges and work collectively to address solutions and meet the priorities set out through sector-based task groups in:

  • Engineering and advanced manufacturing
  • Construction including civil engineering
  • Health and adult social care
  • Creative, cultural, media and digital
  • Land-based covering agricultural, environmental
  • Visitor and cultural economy including tourism

Skills East Sussex Terms of Reference

Board meeting minutes

Skills East Sussex meets quarterly and minutes are approved by members at the following meeting. For example, if a meeting is held in July with the next meeting in October, the minutes for July will not appear online until after the October meeting has taken place.


Please see below for the minutes and documents of recent Skills East Sussex meetings.


The Secretariat aim to have the last three sets of available minutes online.

Apprenticeships East Sussex (AES)

Apprenticeships East Sussex (AES) is the county’s strategic body for apprenticeships, with the key aim of ensuring the growth of apprenticeships in East Sussex. The role of AES, as set out in its terms of reference, is to:

  • provide oversight and coordination of key stakeholders, strategies and communication plans
  • horizon scan and identify change, challenge and issues arising
  • where appropriate, lobby collectively on behalf of apprentices, employers and training providers to ensure ongoing sustainability and growth of apprenticeships in East Sussex.

If your business would like to find out more about apprenticeships, or find support to access funding, visit the Council’s TRANSFORM Service page or contact TRANSFORM@eastsussex.gov.uk

For details of current apprenticeship vacancies, search apprenticeship vacancies when visiting Opportunities pages at Careers East Sussex. 

Terms of reference

Apprenticeships East Sussex meetings

Please find below the minutes of the latest meetings.

If you wish to see minutes of a meeting, please email Skills East Sussex and we will do our best to help.

Apprenticeships Graduation Ceremony 2022

Developing employment and skills through social value

Social value

Social value became a legal requirement through the Public Services Act in 2012. This requires suppliers to local authorities to offer wider benefits linked to their contract, called social value. Broadly these benefits can include supporting the local economy, the local environment and offering help to local community groups.

As regards the 'local economy' such social value can mean offering employment and training to local people, doing careers talks in local schools and supporting local businesses.

Supporting suppliers (employers) to support local employment and skills through social value

Suppliers who wish to offer support to the local economy as part of their social value, can contact Skills East Sussex for support and information.

The East Sussex Market Place

The County Council has developed a portal called the East Sussex Social Value Market Place. This enables local organisations such as charities and community groups to post up requests for help from suppliers. Such help can mean spare building materials or suggestions for voluntary work. Likewise suppliers or employers can post up items or time they can donate which can be picked up local groups.

Examples of social value being delivered in East Sussex schools

The following case study is an example of employers who had social value commitments working in schools.

Employers Doing Social Value Work In School
Employers doing social value work in school

TRANSFORM Service

TRANSFORM is the county’s service to support small and medium sized organisations (under 250 employees) with workforce development, including skills training and apprenticeships.  The service provides information and impartial advice and guidance to Skills East Sussex priority sector organisations located in East Sussex.

We are specialist in supporting organisations with their skills and training needs, specifically apprenticeships and other government-funded training.  We help your organisation understand what is available and how to access it.

Skills East Sussex priority sectors

Skills East Sussex priority sectors are:

  • Construction and Civil Engineering
  • Creative, Cultural, Digital and Media
  • Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing
  • Health and Social Care
  • Visitor and Cultural Economy
  • Land, Agriculture and Environmental

We also help wider local industry priorities of:

  • Education
  • Energy & Utilities
  • Finance
  • Professional, Scientific & Technical

Help with skills training and apprenticeships for your organisation

We provide support to:

  • Identify skills gaps in your workforce and provide impartial advice on appropriate apprenticeship and skills training programmes
  • Choose a provider and access government-funded short courses
  • Apply for East Sussex County Council apprenticeship levy transfer to cover the full cost of apprenticeship training, if workers are over the age of 21
  • Set up and manage the employer’s Apprenticeship Service account
  • Wider advice and guidance about incentives, grants and business support

Recruitment support

If your organisation is looking to recruit, then working with our internal Apprenticeships Team we can also offer support to:

  • Advertise your vacancies
  • Source candidates for interview
  • Support candidates with interview preparation
  • Provide ongoing support to ensure a successful outcome for both employer and apprentice

Service Delivery

This service is delivered 1:1 for your organisation – and tailored to best meet your needs.  Most meetings are conducted over Teams, but we can visit clients where preferred.

Priority sector organisations can book a meeting by emailing TRANSFORM@eastsussex.gov.uk

The TRANSFORM Toolkit

The TRANSFORM Toolkit has been developed to help employer organisations from all industry sectors in East Sussex, who are interested in exploring ways of investing in new and existing workers. Understanding the publicly funded opportunities available can be challenging for smaller businesses, so the Toolkit has been designed to help navigate the skills training and apprenticeship opportunities available to develop and/or grow their workforce.

TRANSFORM Service