GET AHEAD WITH FREE INTRODUCTORY COURSES

Many people are using the current period of uncertainty as an opportunity to invest in themselves and are upskilling or reskilling in order to become future ready.  

Developing or updating your skill set can help to keep your CV fresh and increase your value to prospective employers and recruiters. It is also a great way to challenge yourself, learn something new and feel a sense of achievement. 

We have provided a list of free courses below from the ‘The Skills Tool Kit’ designed by the UK Department of Education.

This is a fantastic resource which is made up of free online courses, tools and resources to help you improve your skills.   

We hope you find this useful.

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The Tools Skill Kit

Find introductory courses

Introductory courses help you learn to use the internet safely for everyday tasks, like finding information, connecting with friends, internet shopping or using online services.

There are links to several collections of courses that teach you the basics and give you the confidence to take your next steps in the digital world.

Learn My Way

  • Description: Resources to help you get started online. Find topics from getting to grips with your computer, tablet or mobile phone to how to use office programs like Excel, Word and PowerPoint. You can also learn to manage your money, use public services or find jobs and careers advice online.
  • Provider: Good Things Foundation
  • Level: Introductory
  • Approximate study time: Bite-sized resources from a few minutes to a few hours

Make It Click

  • Description: Tools and resources to help you build skills for using social media, email or make working from home easier. Learn to use applications like Word, PowerPoint and Excel and know how to stay safe online. Improve your digital skills for things like creating a CV, running a webinar or using online services.
  • Provider: Good Things Foundation
  • Level: Introductory
  • Approximate study time: Bite-sized resources from a few minutes to a few hours

Get the best out of Microsoft Outlook

  • Description: Learn how to get to grips with Microsoft Outlook, which offers an email service, calendar, contact book and more. This course covers topics like organising your inbox, managing your calendar and creating to-do lists.
  • Provider: Microsoft Outlook
  • Level: Introductory
  • Approximate study time: Bite-sized resources from a few minutes to a few hours

Learn for Everyday Life

  • Description: Inspire your digital journey with lessons on a variety of skills to help you master video calling, deal with online fraud, improve your CV, present yourself and work with others safely online.
  • Provider: Lloyds Bank
  • Level: Introductory
  • Approximate study time: Bite-sized lessons from a few minutes to a few hours

Numeracy

Introductory numeracy courses can help you to improve your confidence with maths for life, learning and work. Being confident with numbers may also help you to take up learning new digital skills.

Everyday Maths

  • Description: Refresh your maths skills to help with everyday life or get on in your job. From using a calculator, learning to convert fractions to decimals and understanding percentages, to measuring objects, distances and weights. Understand how to use tables, diagrams and charts. You’ll get lots of practice using the maths you need in daily life.
  • Provider: The Open University
  • Level: Introductory
  • Approximate study time: 48 hours

Introduction to Bookkeeping

  • Description: Get an introduction to the essential skills and concepts of bookkeeping and accounting. The course covers double-entry bookkeeping, how to prepare a trial balance and the two principal financial statements: the balance sheet and the profit and loss account.
  • Provider: The Open University
  • Level: Introductory
  • Approximate study time: 8 hours

Introduction to Finance

  • Description: Understand the essential analytical tools and financial reports that are used to manage organisations, like understanding balance sheets, profit and loss accounts and cash flow forecast and managing budgets.
  • Provider: Corndel
  • Level: Introductory
  • Approximate study time: Complete over 2 to 4 weeks

Find intermediate courses

Intermediate courses are for you if you already have some digital skills. They are a chance for you to build on what you know already and develop new skills like using online tools for business, producing online content and more.

Create a Professional Online Presence

  • Description: Explore how to present yourself professionally online. Find out more about different social media platforms and how the way that you conduct yourself online can impact your professional reputation. Learn about safety and privacy and the ways that your online activity might be viewed by different audiences.
  • Provider: FutureLearn
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Approximate study time: 4 hours in total over 2 weeks

Thriving in the Digital Workplace

  • Description: Boost your confidence and build the skills you need to use digital technology in the workplace. Explore jobs that need digital skills through real life case studies. Get to know what digital skills you’re most likely to need in the future to stay one step ahead and develop techniques to enhance wellbeing and resilience at work.
  • Provider: FutureLearn
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Approximate study time: 12 hours in total over 6 weeks

How to Create Great Online Content

  • Description: Find out about different types of online content and what makes them effective in different situations. Discover the importance of tone, style and format in your communications, and develop best practice for communicating effectively online.
  • Provider: FutureLearn
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Approximate study time: 4 hours in total over 2 weeks

Presenting Your Work with Impact

  • Description: Learn to create and present engaging content clearly and confidently in a range of situations, like in interviews and business meetings. Explore different types of presentation software and learn techniques to convey your ideas with confidence.
  • Provider: FutureLearn
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Approximate study time: 4 hours in total over 2 weeks

Digital Skills: Social Media (for business)

  • Description: A course for those wanting to use social media effectively to develop their entrepreneurial skills, to enter the workplace or to change career. Learn how to use social media to establish and improve your brand, set campaign objectives and identify your target audience. Create engaging content and discover the best places to pitch it.
  • Provider: FutureLearn
  • Level: Intermediate
  • Approximate study time: 2 hours in total over 2 weeks

Find advanced courses

Advanced courses cover more technical or higher level skills like coding, digital marketing, cyber security and more. These courses range from introductions to advanced concepts to help you master these skills.

Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

  • Description: Learn how to market goods or services online through a series of short video tutorials and knowledge quizzes. The course covers topics like creating a website and getting it known, marketing your business locally and internationally and advertising using social media. There are modules covering how to sell online as well as how to analyse the success of your marketing plan.
  • Provider: Google Digital Garage
  • Level: Advanced
  • Approximate study time: 40 hours

Discovering Computer Networks: hands on in the Open Networking Lab

  • Description:Learn how computer networks operate, how data is sent around the internet and put your understanding into practice using an inbuilt network simulator to create your own simulated computer networks.
  • Provider: The Open University
  • Level: Advanced
  • Approximate study time: 24 hours

Learn to Code for Data Analysis

  • Description: Learn how to write your own computer programs, one line of code at a time. Find out how to access open data, clean and analyse it, and produce visualisations, and how to present your analyses, privately or publicly. You’ll be coding in Python, a widely used programming language across all disciplines.
  • Provider: The Open University
  • Level: Advanced
  • Approximate study time: 24 hours

Programming Essentials in Python

  • Description: Learn how to code in Python: an object-oriented programming language used by small companies to tech giants. Gain skills to write your own computer programmes, or to design a web or desktop application. You don’t need to have any previous programming experience or knowledge to do this course.
  • Provider: Cisco Networking Academy
  • Level: Advanced
  • Approximate study time: 70 hours

Introduction to Cyber Security: Stay Safe Online

  • Description: Learn how to stay safe online at home and at work. The course will help you to recognise cyber threats and the steps to take to reduce your risks online. Find out about malware, viruses, trojans, network security, cryptography, identity theft and risk management.
  • Provider: The Open University
  • Level: Advanced
  • Approximate study time: 24 hours

Sources and Acknowledgement – The National Careers Service Toolkit. Please note that we do not have any affiliations with any of the course providers and acts as a general resource tool only. The terms and conditions of use of the course providers is set out on their websites, including any relevant disclaimers.