Lifetime skills guaranteed with free adult courses
We’re helping Gloucestershire get back on its feet by offering a wide range of courses to adults for FREE, as part of the government-backed Lifetime Skills Guarantee scheme.
FREE courses for adults
Lifetime skills are guaranteed with our FREE courses for adults in trades, finance, management and care. If you're aged 19+ and don't have a Level 3 qualification, apply today to change the course of your future.
Evening courses are BACK!
Whether you want to create insta-worthy floral arrangements, make your own clothes, learn a language or pen your first novel, there’s a creative evening course at GC for you.
Professional short courses
Improve workplace productivity and upgrade employees' skills with our range of affordable professional short courses in business, IT, HR and management.
FREE online short courses
Retrain for a new career or improve skills in your current one. Online courses available in business, IT, care and more, to study at home when it suits you. Flexible, free and with dedicated online support.
Refresh or retrain for your career move
Gain the skills and confidence to get the job you want with our range of free courses designed to help jobseekers refresh, retrain and prepare to re-enter the workplace, whether you are long-term unemployed or have recently been made redundant.
Keep learning, wherever you are
Our new range of online-only, remote and blended courses cover business, finance, health and social care, Access to HE, apprenticeships and FREE short courses. Ensuring you can continue to develop around home and work life, or even prepare for a career change.
Traineeships for 16-24 year olds
Motivated and looking for your big break? Skills Accelerator and Traineeships can help you reach your goals. An 8-week course in valuable work skills with a 6-week work placement and full support with your English, maths and CV writing to give you that all-important work experience employers love.
There is always something going on at GC!
Catch up on the latest stories from the College, from student successes and award wins to inspiring case studies and top tips.
Read testimonials from our employer partners, updates from our three campuses in Cheltenham, Gloucester and the Forest of Dean, plus, go behind-the-scenes in our exclusive picture galleries.
Read the latest Covid update from Gloucestershire College here.
The UK could face a “catastrophic gap” in digital skills warned a recent report published by the Learning and Work Institute and WorldSkills UK. Despite the report’s findings – one being that nationally, young people studying IT subjects is declining – Gloucestershire College has again bucked the trend, with an increased demand for its IT, cyber and digital courses and apprenticeships. Student applications for September 2021 starts have significantly grown across the board, with applications for the College’s university level courses – computing and digital degrees, HNCs and HNDs increasing by a massive 143% year on year. Find out more here.
As proud champions of apprenticeships in Gloucestershire, we love sharing the success stories of our apprentices here at the College. We caught up with Thomas Robertson, Engineer Apprentice at Traffic Group Signals to find out how what his job involves as a Test Engineer.
As proud champions of apprenticeships in Gloucestershire, we love sharing the success stories of our apprentices here at the College. We caught up with William Lowe, Engineering Apprentice at GE Aviation to find out why chose to do an apprenticeship and what his has experience has been of the course so far.
As proud champions of apprenticeships in Gloucestershire, we love sharing the success stories of our apprentices here at the College. We caught up with Steve Cross, Manufacturing Engineer Apprentice at GE Aviation to discover what made him move into engineering after 10 years in retail.
Exclusively for Gloucestershire’s SMEs, find out how your business can access up to £40,000 worth of grants through Scale Up 4 Growth at an online event, hosted by Gloucestershire College in partnership with UWE Bristol and NatWest on Wednesday 31 March at 2pm. Find out more here.
Gloucestershire College and Betaris Training are aiming to train the next generation of skilled railway workers by offering a free course in rail track maintenance starting Monday 15 March.
In July 2020, the government announced new incentive payments for employers to encourage the recruitment of new apprentices. Originally planned to end on 31 January 2021, the incentive payments have now been extended for a third time to September 2021. The amount each business will receive for every new apprentice hired is also being increased to £3,000 from April 2021. With the existing £1000 incentive for taking on a 16-18 apprentice, this now means businesses will receive up to £4000 per apprentice recruited.