Connect Derby and Derby City Council have won the prestigious Delivering for Derby award at this year’s We’re Here For Derby Awards.
The awards ceremony, which was held earlier this month, celebrated the best of Derby’s services that benefit the local community.
We won the award for our partnership work to deliver the Rolls-Royce Nuclear Skills Academy at the iHub, where we helped to relocate existing iHub businesses to make way for 200 apprentices each year for 10 years, creating a dedicated pipeline of young talent for this fast-growing sector.
Based at the iHub in Derby, the Nuclear Skills Academy is a partnership between the University of Derby and Rolls-Royce and is supported by industry and education experts, including the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, the National College for Nuclear and Derby City Council.
The Connect Derby team worked at pace to vacate 50% of the building, with 16 office-based businesses moved in just eight weeks to allow the University six weeks of refurbishment time before they accepted their first set of apprentices in September 2022.
Due to our team’s exceptionally hard work, the relocation of all iHub tenants was met by the April 2023 deadline and operational building handover was given to the University of Derby.
A huge congrats to both teams – Connect Derby’s Ann Bhatti, Syd Holland and Kirandeep Kaur and Derby City Council’s Joanna Rees and Mark Lowe.