Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase collaboration between universities and technology companies regarding digital skills training.

The Institutes of Technology programme, backed by £290 million of taxpayer funding from Her Majesty's Government, is helping to increase collaboration between universities and technology companies in the delivery of key science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, including digital skills training. Institutes of Technology have universities and employers at the heart of their leadership. Many of the 12 Institutes of Technology that we have already announced are specialising in digital skills, involving major employers such as Microsoft. We plan to establish a comprehensive network of 20 Institutes of Technology nationwide and launched a 'wave 2' competition in October 2020 open to all regions of the country currently without an Institute of Technology. We will announce the outcome of the competition later this year.