Celebrating our learners’ achievements: Our new Skills Change Lives campaign

Celebrities from the worlds of TV, fashion and journalism explain how skills training helped them on their path to success, in a series of exclusive interviews with City & Guilds.

23 September 2024

At City & Guilds, we’re constantly inspired by the success of our learners –as they gain the skills they need to progress, both in life and in work.

Every learner can tell a different story – of how developing skills helped them overcome obstacles, or brought them closer to achieving their goals. This is at the heart of our core beliefs – that skills have the power to inspire, and to transform people’s lives.

And it’s the inspiration for our new ‘Skills Change Lives’ campaign, which celebrates our learners’ achievements - and invites learners to share their own stories of the difference that skills development has made to them.

To launch this campaign, we’re proud to introduce a series of interviews with well-known former City & Guilds learners – all of whom support our campaign and share their stories of how gaining skills helped them build their careers.

Talking about his City & Guilds training at Westminster Kingsway College, celebrity chef and TV star Ainsley Harriott MBE told City & Guilds CEO, Kirstie Donnelly MBE,

“It was really important, because it gave me an opportunity to go to college and show my skills I learnt at my workplace"

In another of our video exclusives, fashion and interior designer Karen Millen OBE said,

“Soon after starting a City & Guilds course, I found I was learning all the skills I needed to do what I needed to do.”

Kirstie Donnelly MBE, CEO at City & Guilds, said,

“At the centre of everything we do at City & Guilds is our long-held belief that skills have the power to inspire and create real change in people’s lives.

In this campaign, we hear from former City & Guilds learners about how skills have helped them build their careers – and we are encouraging others to share their own skills stories with us on social media with the hashtag #MySkillsStory

See the series of celebrity interviews