The Thames Gateway is Europe’s largest regeneration initiative. It offers a huge range of opportunities to people in North Kent, but unless local people have the right knowledge and skills, they will not benefit from the new developments.

At present Thames Gateway has a serious skills gap:

• 30% of the population have no formal qualifications - the overall figure for the South East is 23%
• More than 50% of the population do not have a level 2 qualification
• Less than 20% of the population go on to university against a national target of 50%
• In the Kent Thames Gateway, 15 000 jobs are created annually. 60% require intermediate or higher skills
• 1 in 3 employers report hard to fill vacancies. Half of theses were put down to a lack of candidates with the right skills.