Microsoft and Prince's Trust to provide IT training to young

12-week course will provide training to 700 unemployed 16-24 year olds

The Prince’s Trust has teamed up with Microsoft to offer the 12-week training course

The Prince’s Trust has teamed up with Microsoft to offer a 12-week training course to about 700 unemployed 16-25 year olds, with the aim of helping them find work.

The course, called the Team Programme, will be rolled out in the North West, East Midlands and Wales initially.

The scheme, developed with support from e-learning organisation ForSkills, follows recent research from Microsoft showing that by 2015, 77 per cent of all jobs will require IT skills. Over the course of 12 weeks, young people will obtain a basic knowledge of Microsoft Office programmes, create an email account and produce a CV.

It aims to support more than 8,000 unemployed young people across the UK over three years.

Matt Lambert, director of corporate affairs and citizenship at Microsoft, said: “We believe that a project like this is more valuable than ever considering the challenges the recession has caused for young people trying to find work and the strong emphasis employers now place on IT skills.”

The initiative is part of Microsoft’s Britain Works, which will help 500,000 people into work over the next three years.