An experience like no other

Get involved in our new employability platform, supporting the residents of Kent with gaining new skills at the same time as promoting your business for free.

The Digital Employability Experience project aims to target inequalities for Kent residents by providing an online employability platform to support them with essential employability skills as well as having a unique focus on essential digital skills.

We want to showcase local businesses and highlight the importance of key digital skills, regardless of which industry you work in.

This project also supports the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP), with a focus (but not limited to) the key sectors of construction, manufacturing and engineering, fresh food and food production, health and social care and education.

Benefits:

• Promote your business and your industry free of charge with links directly to your website and any other relevant information

• Support the Kent and Medway LSIP

• Help increase the numbers of residents with essential employability skills, bridging the skills gap

• Decrease unemployment across Kent

• Increase localised knowledge of services

• Work towards reducing households in financial hardship

• Aim to support the reduction of people not in education, employment or training (NEET) across Kent.

What now:

Be part of our platform launch happening in September 2025 and help make this countywide initiative a success.

We have a great team working on this who will help get information about your business uploaded quick and easy.

To find out more and to book in a call, please email digitalex@kent.gov.uk

In response to ongoing financial challenges for residents, the team is actively providing support to people facing financial difficulties. Initially established from the Helping Hands Scheme created in 2021, the initiatives, with technology solutions at their heart, have ensured comprehensive assistance to individuals and families in need.

Over the past four years, the programme has significantly impacted thousands of people. Key achievements include issuing over 180,000 awards of support through the Department of Work and Pensions-funded Household Support Fund, writing off more that £57,000 of resident debt, assisting people in securing employment and upskilling into higher-paying jobs, and establishing one of the country’s largest Digital Champions Networks. This work has resulted in being shortlisted for seven awards and has been strongly commended by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Debt is a major issue for many people trying to sustain basic living costs. To address this, the Kent Money Advice Hub project, delivered through Citizens Advice North and West Kent, offers a central hub for specialist debt advice, reducing triage times and providing high-quality, standardised support. Initially a pilot project funded by the Helping Hands Scheme with the establishment of five hubs, the project has now expanded with further Helping Hands and partner funding and is currently operating with 37 hub locations across the county.

Digital inclusion has been another area of focus for the programme. The Digital Kent team was established to improve digital inclusion and skills in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, it has positively impacted over 15,600 residents through a range of collaborative projects, ensuring individuals have the skills, access, and confidence to utilise digital tools in a meaningful way.

Partnership working has been key in ensuring effective and tailored support for individuals across the programme. An example of this is the ReferKent platform which was established using the Helping Hands scheme to facilitate effective referrals to organisations that can provide support, ensuring no one falls through the cracks. The system now has 289 organisations onboard with 1382 users actively able to use the system.

The work of the programme was scheduled to complete at the end of March 2025, but after attracting additional funding, the initial investment from the Helping Hands Scheme has been able to operate beyond the initial timeline and has been able to continue into this year without further investment required by KCC.

Further Information:

• KCC’s Helping Hands scheme was first started in 2021 for families and businesses adversely affected by the pandemic and has evolved with cost-of-living support

• The Household Support Fund is provided by the UK government’s Department for Work and Pensions to support residents in need of help with rising living costs and is administered by KCC

• Access support and advice around debt through the Citizens Advice Kent Money Advice Hub

• Find out more about the projects and schemes to support digital inclusion through Digital Kent

• Find out more about ReferKent and utilising the system as an organisation

• More information on cost of living support can be found at Kent Together