52 UK and Irish organisations receive royal seal of approval from HRH The Princess Royal

 City & Guilds has today announced the training programmes in Wales that will be recognised by the 2024 Princess Royal Training Awards.

Now in its ninth year, The Princess Royal Training Awards continue to recognise organisations who demonstrate exceptional commitment to learning and development, and is now established as a prestigious and sought-after accolade in this field.

With skills training increasingly cited as a key to improving productivity challenges within the economy, creating learning programmes to develop new and existing workforce talent is now more important than ever.

In its latest round of awards, the Princess Royal Training Awards attracted registrations of interest from over 600 employers, of whom 127 applied for the awards. This year’s 52 winning recipients included SMEs, not-for-profit organisations and large multinational employers, who showcased innovation within their training programmes on key issues such as sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion. They will be presented with their award by HRH The Princess Royal, President of City and Guilds of London Institute, at a ceremony later this year.

Award recipients have been selected by a newly-expanded team of Assessors including Princess Royal Training Awards alumni and top-tier experts from the world of Learning & Development.

Since achieving the Award in 2019 for an apprenticeship programme, Tata Steel, the steel producer has continued to invest in training and developing with over 1000 employees at the heart of its strategy. The company identified that 30% of its workforce was aged over 50 and has recruited 1,500 trainees onto programmes ranging from levels 2 to 7, successfully creating sustainable talent pipelines. The company receives 1,500 applications for the 200-300 apprenticeships it has available each year.

Since achieving an Award in 2021, apprenticeship programme provider Educ8 Group has grown from 140 to 250 employees and has evolved its previous workforce development programme to reflect the needs of a growing company. A bespoke approach was introduced which can flex to individuals’ needs. 126 people have been trained since August 2023 and outcomes of graded observations have increased dramatically.

South Wales Police created the Springboard training programme to increase female representation across all ranks. The four-day blended programme focuses on behavioural and attitudinal factors as research indicated this is what was causing barriers to women in applying for promotions. Of the 145 officers who have participated, 97 have been promoted since attending and 37% of officers are now female compared to a previous 27.9%.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE, Chief Executive of City & Guilds said:

“The Princess Royal Training Awards has become the ‘gold standard’ for training, learning and development, and continues to demonstrate how these can open up opportunities and attract new talent to industries with significant skills gaps and labour shortages.

This year’s recipients have shown innovation and commitment to development within their own organisations, including those which have successfully tackled contemporary skills challenges which bring us closer to net zero, as well as others who have introduced unique and interesting programmes to ensure that traditional skills do not disappear.

We are delighted to be able to recognise their accomplishments and, as we look ahead to our 10 year celebrations of the Awards are keen to continue seeing organisations prioritising investing into training to improve both their people, and organisation performance. We look forward to celebrating with this year’s recipients in the Autumn.”

For a full list of this year’s recipients and their training programmes please see the 2024 recipients page or you can find out how to apply for The Princess Royal Training Awards 2025 here.