The Lincoln College Group
An extraordinary employer-led organisation, producing a highly skilled and productive local workforce.
Lincoln College Group (LCG) encompasses Lincoln and Newark colleges, which deliver technical training courses, apprenticeships, T Levels, A Levels, Higher Education degrees and commercial training to around 12,000 students and apprentices every year.
The Group also contains a number of subsidiary companies, some of which act as finishing schools to help our students get work-ready.
Lincoln College International (LCI) is a Saudi-based company within the Group, which runs technical training colleges and capability-building contracts in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Group also has a significant technical training operation in China, working with four partner colleges, along with broader international experience in Europe, Asia and the Eastern Caribbean. LCG’s international operation trains between 2,000 and 6,500 people each year, depending on live contracts.
The heart of the Group is the 136-year-old College in the heart of the city of Lincoln in Lincolnshire, governed by a Board of Corporation made up of respected business leaders, recruited from the private, public and third sectors in the region.
The Group has around 1,000 full and part-time staff and its People Plan is focused priorities to support the capacity, recognition and wellbeing of its people.
LCG aims to achieve happiness, loyalty and productivity in its workforce. This was recognised by Active Lincolnshire, which awarded Lincoln and Newark Colleges the Active Workplace 2023 Award.
The Group’s purpose is: “To be an extraordinary employer-led organisation, producing a highly skilled and productive local workforce.”
The word ‘local’ refers to wherever we are operating in the world and the phrase ‘employer-led’ refers to the fact that we will stay relevant and relatable to employers by asking them to help develop our curriculum and design our learning environments.
The word ‘productive’ refers to our intent to ensure all of our students are work-ready, with skills identified by employers including; resilience, independence, communication, decision making, problem solving and leadership.
Lincoln College provides Ofsted ‘Good’ further education and apprenticeship training and after its last inspection Ofsted praised the College’s focus on the employability skills, its support for students and its emphasis on “the craft of teaching”.
Lincoln College’s Higher Education provision (Lincoln College University Centre) has been awarded Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Silver status and recognised for the quality of its teaching and assessment, its excellent employer and student engagement and its support for its student body. TEF is a national scheme run by the Office for Students (OfS).
The College’s employer engagement and innovation in education and training has been recognised in the AoC Beacon Awards, the Lincolnshire Business Awards, the Newark Business Awards and the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce Business Awards.
Lincoln College’s purpose of being an extraordinary employer-led organisation drives employer engagement to co-design its curriculum.
In key priority skills areas for Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire this has led to the development of Supra-Study Programmes. Here we co-design the curriculum with sector-leading employers. We then design extensive enrichment programmes including industry placements, guest speakers and industry trips and visits, focused on work-ready skills and the culture of the sector.
Students on supra-study programmes receive hundreds of hours more teaching time than the Government funds us for. We are only able to do this due to the additional income we generate via our Commercial and International Division.
All of our sector areas have employer boards or critical industry friends to guide curriculum development and advise on productivity and employability training.
Care college: The only college course in the UK enabling students to complete the Care Certificate, which is the gold standard care-giving qualification, ensuring students can hit the ground running in a sector experiencing huge skills shortages
Policing College: A partnership with Lincolnshire Police that prepares young people for its Professional Policing Degree and progression into police officer roles, along with jobs and apprenticeships in support roles including 999 call handlers and custody officers.
The Air and Space Institute (ASI): The ASI prepares young people for careers in the aviation and space sectors working as engineers, ground operations staff and cabin crew via technical training and A Levels at its new £15m HQ in Newark. This world-class training facility houses an Air France Airbus A318 jet and students take flight lessons out of Nottingham City Airport.
Lincoln School of Food and Hospitality: This centre of excellence trains young people for chef, front of house, barista, mixologist, hospitality manager and events manager roles. Here our students work in our finishing schools; Session Restaurant, The Old Bakery restaurant and The Drill.
Lee Stafford Academy: Supported by award-winning celebrity hair stylist Lee Stafford, this supra-study programme gets young people work-ready for the hairdressing and barbering industry. Lee Stafford and his team train our staff and students in the latest styling, cutting and colouring techniques in special masterclasses throughout the year. Our students also work in our city centre finishing school Salon – Aura.
The Drill is a not-for-profit arts and entertainment venue, which hosts live music, theatre, and community groups and weddings. It also serves the business community with expos, conferences, meeting room hire, corporate entertainment packages and awards ceremonies.
The Drill is a unique, Grade II listed building that LCG has invested heavily in to restore it to its former glory as a much-loved and iconic local landmark.
Our production arts, performing arts and catering and hospitality students all conduct elements of their training in The Drill, as well as working in the venue during shows and events.
The Old Bakery is the only not-for-profit fine-dining restaurant in Lincolnshire. Our Lincoln School of Food and Hospitality students benefit from working with head-chef Phil Cooke’s expertise and experience, by working alongside him during prep and service at the restaurant.
This beautiful character building in the heart of Lincoln’s Historic Quarter has been lovingly restored by LCG and serves thousands of paying customers each year.
Aura is a city-centre hair and beauty salon just of the High Street in Lincoln. This was leased and rebranded by Lincoln College to act as an industry training ground for its level three students. Supported by Lee Strafford Academy, GHD, Wella and Sebastian, it delivers hair care and beauty treatments to the public on a not-for-profit basis.
Aura is partnered with the Green Salon Collective and pays an additional Green Fee to ensure none of its waste reaches landfill (including waste hair, foil and chemical collection).
Human Alchemy works with organisations seeking transformational, not incremental change. It brings a mix of consulting, facilitating, coaching and mentoring to help leaders and organisations to be extraordinary.
The business began in 2000 and has a wealth of experience in supporting a wide range of businesses. This includes the RAF Tedder Academy of Leadership, the Co-op, David Lloyd clubs and many public sector organisations. Its experienced mentors work with organisations to develop vision and strategy, develop leaders, overcome dysfunction, engage workforces and manage mergers and acquisitions.
This data science consultancy aims to deliver affordable, accessible and agile data analytics to all organisations regardless of size, turnover, or experience.
The knowledge ladder works with clients to achieve data dashboarding and visualisation. Machine learning and predictive analytics, geographical modelling and leadership development.
All profit generated by the College’s commercial ventures are reinvested in education and training across our sites, including in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
Lincoln College University Centre is business-led and career-focused. Many of our degree courses have been designed in conjunction with our business and industry partners, ensuring our students have the opportunity to leave us with a clear pathway to a successful career.
A highly competitive job market across most sectors can make securing graduate roles challenging. That’s why we’ve developed Career Degrees, to give our students the opportunity to get ahead of the competition at interview and help them secure the career of their dreams.
We have a variety of courses covering a wide range of subject areas, including Animal Management, Business, Construction, Computing, Education, Engineering, Health, Photography and Digital Media, Policing, Sports, and Travel and Tourism Management. Our provision also offers unique and specialist subjects, including Clinical Herbalism and Musical Instrument Crafts (making and repair).
Our classes are smaller which means our students can receive more one-to-one time with their tutors, as well as engaging debates and collaborative working with fellow students. With our condensed timetables, students can choose to work while studying, look after family or enjoy a better study-life balance than traditional universities.
Each year our university-level students graduate in an annual ceremony held in and around the grounds of the historic Lincoln Cathedral.
Lincoln College International (LCI) has been successfully operating in the Kingdom Saudi Arabia since 2014. Since that time LCG has reinvested all additional income generated by LCI into education and training.
LCI has a proven track record of delivering high quality education and training in the Kingdom, either by running colleges in partnership with the Colleges of Excellence or running delivery contracts within colleges and universities.
LCI currently has a strategic partnership with Saudi Aramco at the Inspection Technology Quality Assurance National (ITQAN) Institute in the Eastern province. ITQAN offers inspection training mainly to high school graduates to qualify them to work in the energy sector.
It is also currently supporting the mobilisation the National Academy of Defence Industries where it will teach engineering apprentices. This will be the first co-education college in the Kingdom with men and women training alongside each other.
In recent history, LCI has trained thousands of women for roles in the service sector at its Qatief Female College, preparing young men for careers at its International Tourism and Hospitality College and training engineers at the Applied Engineering College in Riyadh.
The Group has been operating in China for more than a decade and now helps to enrich technical training and degree programmes with classes taught in English at the Sichuan College of Architectural Technology (SCAT), Chengdu Polytechnic, Chengdu Industry and Trade College and Guangdong Polytechnic.
In short – to invest in achieving its purpose. LCG uses additional income from its commercial and international business to ensure its quality overseas, but also to invest in education and training in the UK.
This additional income funds teaching posts, enables investment in equipment and buildings and allows us to purchase and invest in finishing school businesses. All of these additional activities are significantly above and beyond anything possible with central government funding.
It is in this sense that we can call our offer extraordinary - in the way it can respond to employer need and prepare people for work.
Lincoln College Group’s purpose is to be employer-led and our pledge is to listen to the needs of small, medium and large employers and respond effectively to those requirements.
We are a not-for-profit training provider that focuses on its level of customer service and the quality of education and training it delivers.
Our business development team offer free training need analysis and workforce planning consultancy to all employers regardless of the size of business. We will then draw up a career pathway training plan for individuals or teams within a business.
Our team will even advertise, screen and interview candidates for apprenticeship vacancies if required.
We can add value to traditional apprenticeship training in a number of ways. Our scale and public sector status mean we can access significant free or subsidised training for businesses including online CPD courses, leadership and management training and sector-specific literacy and numeracy training.
Larger businesses may also benefit from our micro-college approach where we align bespoke technical training and cultural awareness to your business, along with industry placements for all students - effectively creating a talent pipeline for your business.
We are also able to work with businesses to fulfil some of their CSR requirements in bidding for government or commercial contracts.
All of our clients benefit from our wider commercial offer, with significant discounts on room hire, venue hire, conferences and corporate entertainment at The Drill, The Old Bakery, Sessions Restaurant, Deans Sport and Leisure, and Escape Lincoln.
Lincoln College is a non-exempt charity sitting at the heart of LCG. Despite being a large commercial entity with several sub-companies, LCG is a not-for profit organisation with no shareholders.
Its Board of Corporation is made up of business leaders who volunteer their time to help steer the strategic direction of the group to achieve its purpose.
Every penny spent with LCG, from coffee in The Drill to several thousand pounds on a commercial or degree course, is reinvested in education and training. This money is spent on funding new teachers, upgrading equipment and trips and visits for students in the UK and around the world.
We are very commercial for a college group, not to make money to make shareholders wealthy – but so we can achieve our purpose – of being an extraordinary employer-led organisation.
At Lincoln College we help students realise possibility. With opportunities for everyone, we encourage our students to look beyond today and to reach their full potential. So start your educational journey today!
There are many ways that Lincoln College can help you add value to your business through education. Whether that be through Apprenticeships and Career Degree graduates, or more direct means with staff training.
The Lincoln College Group is a place where exceptional, remarkable, astonishing and amazing people come together with the aim of achieving extraordinary things. Why not join us in making a difference?
