Jaguar Land Rover is partnering with tech unicorn Multiverse to launch a massive data training programme for its staff.
Multiverse - founded by Euan Blair - is already training thousands of apprentices across the UK. Now JLR says it is working with Multiverse "to enhance the data skills of its employees as it accelerates its digital transformation and prepares for an electrified future".
It's part of JLR's Reimagine strategy to focus on "electrification, digital services and data".
Multiverse will offer a 15-month Data Fellowship course to JLR employees covering topics from data modelling to machine learning. The first 400 employees have enrolled this summer and the course will be run every quarter.
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Clive Benford, chief data officer, said: “The automotive industry is rapidly changing to become digital and electric. The management and utilisation of increasingly high volumes of data in this new era will be central to Jaguar Land Rover’s future. We need to create a data-first mindset that will support our growth, enhance the customer experience, and increase the productivity and expertise of our teams.
“The business’ own digital transformation is already under way with software-over-the-air, which demonstrates the power of effectively harnessing data. The primary goal of our partnership with Multiverse is to empower all our employees to utilise data, gain insights from it and develop valuable solutions.”
Multiverse aims to offer tech apprenticeships as an alternative to university and trains more than 8,000 tech, leadership and digital apprentices. In June it became the UK's first education technology firm to achieve unicorn status after being valued at $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in its latest funding round.
The latest funding injection - from US investment firm StepStone Group with previous investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst - will help the company grow further into the USA.
Its founder Euan Blair, son of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to education in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Euan Blair said: "This ambitious and far-reaching programme is one of the largest data apprenticeship programmes ever launched in the UK, and will deliver world-class training in data to hundreds of people on an ongoing basis.
"Jaguar Land Rover's investment in apprenticeships shows the premium placed on data skills and the power of apprenticeships to deliver impactful new skills into a business through applied learning."
