Ben Rowland has today taken over as Chief Executive Officer of The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) at a crucial time for the skills sector.
Britain faces a big skills gap, and the role of AELP’s members will be vital in solving this. Yet, the sector is underfunded and the country lacks a coherent skills strategy while also having to deal with the impact of unprecedented inflation rates. There is also highly likely to be a UK General Election within the next 12 months. AELP recently launched Skills Means Growth, its vision for a sustainable skills sector.
Ben takes up the role of AELP CEO today (Monday 11 December) after recently working in an independent advisory capacity for corporates, non-profits and government organisations, working on learning and career programmes. Prior to that he founded Arch Apprentices in 2012, and helped the organisation to grow into one of the country's biggest training providers including being judged Outstanding by Ofsted in 2016. In addition, Ben has previously sat on the Department for Education's Apprenticeship Stakeholder Board and has significant insight and experience of working with government.
