The Professional and Technical Skills strand of UKIERI has been promoting partnerships between UK and Indian Further Education Centres of Excellence to develop collaborative projects, exchanges and work placements. The three major focus areas have been Financial Skills sectors which includes banking and insurance, Creative Industry including fashion, textiles, film/television & animation and Petrochemical.

Till date UKIERI has brokered 14 links between further education institutes in India and the UK against a target of 6 as set up in 2006. All these partnerships were formed through the process of expression of interest, pre bid workshop and project manager’s workshop .The corporate sector has also contributed funding and in-kind support like strategic expertise, representation on project steering committee and staff engagement on the Professional & Technical Skills strand. KPMG and LCCI have been the key supporters of this strand.

The key activities under this strand were towards supporting development of high-value skills training and education partnerships in the field of professional and technical skills, encouraging participation of businesses and other stakeholders in the capacity of employers to influence the development of standards and programmes to ensure that their needs are met effectively and also provided opportunities for partner educational institutions to gain benefits from shared curriculum, innovative approaches to delivery and staff exchanges and development. The strand also provided opportunities for students to undertake industrial placements.