That is why NOCN Group has launched Be Ready, a new approach bringing together qualifications, skills development and flexible learning to help providers create stronger routes from learning into sustainable employment and progression.

Built around three stages, Ready to Learn. Ready to Work. Ready to Grow, Be Ready recognises that there is no single journey to becoming work ready.

Different starting points, different journeys

Learners arrive with different experiences, ambitions and barriers. For some, the priority might be strengthening English and maths. Others may need to build confidence, essential life skills or workplace behaviours. Some need greater digital capability or sector-specific skills, while others are ready to move into an apprenticeship, employment or further development.

And these needs do not disappear the moment somebody enters work. Recent Department for Education research highlights how persistent barriers to progression can be. Young people who were NEET at both 16 and 17 had an 82% likelihood of experiencing NEET again between the ages of 18 and 21.

By age 25, 22% of young people who had been eligible for free school meals had achieved a Level 6 or above qualification, compared with 42% of those who had not. For learners with SEN, the figure was 15%, compared with 42% for those without SEN.

These figures underline a wider challenge. Participation in education or training does not automatically translate into sustained progression.

Supporting the whole journey

Be Ready has been developed to help colleges, training providers, employability organisations, adult learning providers and other partners respond to that challenge.

Rather than starting with a particular qualification or product, the approach starts with the learner and the outcome an organisation is trying to achieve.

Ready to Learn focuses on building stronger foundations, from English and maths to life skills, personal development, confidence and flexible learning.
Ready to Work helps turn learning into opportunity by developing employability skills, workplace behaviours, digital capabilities and the sector knowledge people need to take their next step.
Ready to Grow looks beyond getting the job, supporting continued progression through apprenticeships, upskilling, professional development and flexible learning.

Together, the three stages allow organisations to build a journey around different learner needs and different starting points.

More flexibility in how skills are developed

Be Ready brings together recognised NOCN qualifications with essential and employability skills development and flexible digital learning.
That includes MicroLens, NOCN Group's short online learning offer, which allows targeted skills to be developed through accessible learning in as little as 10 to 15 minutes.

The aim is to give organisations more flexibility to combine different approaches, whether they are engaging people further from the labour market, strengthening essential skills, responding to digital and AI skills needs, supporting employer priorities or creating clearer progression pathways.

It also means organisations do not need to arrive with a particular qualification or programme already in mind.

NOCN Group can work with providers to understand their learners, existing provision and priorities, identify where there may be gaps and explore the combination of qualifications and learning that could support them.

Ready to Learn. Ready to Work. Ready to Grow.

For more than 40 years, NOCN Group has worked with providers, employers and partners to help people develop the skills they need to progress.

Be Ready brings that experience together around a simple principle: there isn't one barrier to becoming work ready, so there can't be one solution.

Whether the priority is helping somebody take their first step back into learning, preparing them for employment or supporting them to develop throughout their career, Be Ready is designed to help create stronger routes to progression.

Find out more about Be Ready and talk to our team about what progression looks like for your learners.

Find out more