Skills Lead

Sector Growth & Skills Lead

Fixed Term, Full Time

£44,434 to £52,275 per annum

Location:

Chelmsford

Working Style:
Anywhere worker

Please note this vacancy is available as a fixed term contract or secondment opportunity for up to 1 year.

Essex County Council is a systems leader for Skills and Economic Growth, partnering with public and private sectors to position Essex as a hub of innovation, enterprise, and ambition. Through our business-facing services, we drive an inclusive, integrated approach to skills development, business support, sector growth, and inward investment across the County.

The Sector Growth and Skills Lead will support Essex's sector development, business growth and skills alignment objectives by delivering initiatives and major projects, that drive productivity, sustainability, innovation, job creation, skills development, and sector growth.

Focusing on key growth sectors and businesses, this role will work to identify industry needs, foster strategic partnerships, and facilitate initiatives that enhance ECC skills and economic growth and skills ambitions. The Lead will contribute to developing and delivering targeted strategies and action plans and engage with partners, businesses, and educational institutions to enhance business growth and employment opportunities for residents, ensuring a well-coordinated approach to Essex's economic priorities.

Central to the role is building and managing partnerships with local authorities, government bodies, education, training providers, and businesses to drive coordinated efforts in skills enhancement, business support and sectoral growth. This includes leading working groups focused on overcoming shared challenges, such as skills shortages and productivity barriers. By fostering these partnerships, the role will amplify the impact of business, sector and skills initiatives, ensuring Essex businesses have access to resources and guidance to thrive in a competitive landscape.

To read more about our business area, please visit:
Policy, Economy, Investment and Public Health

• Operational planning and performance review to maintain exceptional service delivery and ensures the political objectives and priorities of the council are met.
• Working collaboratively within and across functions to and thinking commercially support the delivery of best possible outcomes for our customers on a financially sustainable basis.
• Maintain and nurture collaborative relationships with other teams in the function and external organisations that support the delivery of annual plans.
• Implementing changes and continually evaluating service to improve the area of work, while maintaining the highest possible levels of service quality are continually delivered.
• Managing complex issues and resources to meet the needs of customers and deliver the best possible outcomes.
• Effective utilisation of digital technologies and innovation across the function.
• Equality and diversity is celebrated and considered as part of all decisions taken.
• Using professional expertise to translate goals and plans into ways of working that comply with relevant legislation and statutory requirements and manages a level of appropriate risk.
• Deliver exemplar customer interactions to individuals and communities which support strong relationships and a reputation for achieving outcomes and resolving issues

• Responsible for supporting the definition and development of strategies and action plans that support business growth, job creation, sector growth and skills alignment within priority sectors.
• Lead the delivery of regional projects, including setting up and coordinating sector-based working groups to identify and address shared challenges, including skills shortages, access to finance, innovation, productivity issues, and opportunities for sector clustering.
• Support the development of commissioning responses to key business growth, employability and skills issues facing Essex, coordinating with external providers and stakeholders to address identified growth challenges and increase the skills of the Essex workforce.
• Deliver ECC's business account management approach and serve as a primary point of contact to build and maintain trusting relationships with businesses, industry representatives and partners. Including researching and recommending routes and effective methods of engagement to understand sector growth, skills, innovation and support needs.
• Act as a subject matter/ sector or industry expert and a central point of contact in ECC for a range of economic growth subject areas to provide advice, technical knowledge, project management across business facing activities.
• Support data collection and analysis to inform strategy adjustments, monitor progress on sectoral, skills and business growth metrics, and evaluate the impact of economic initiatives.
• Lead the delivery of business engagement events, summits, workshops, and webinars to advance ECC's…