CodeBase is relaunching CodeClan, the digital skills academy, with three Scottish colleges and a Silicon Valley teaching programme for coding.

The pilot with Edinburgh College, Borders College, and West Lothian College, is set to commence this summer, with content delivered by Silicon Valley education platform Qwasar.

The relaunch comes less than a year after the sudden news that the original CodeClan went into liquidation, with CodeBase then acquiring select assets and enabling around 80 affected students to finish their courses in software development and data analysis.

CodeBase says the relaunch is in response to “high levels” of industry demand for software development and data science expertise, as well as an acute requirement for upskilling to address the digital skills gap, and the potential to accelerate economic impact.

CodeBase, which also runs the Scottish government’s startup support programme Techscaler, is currently engaged in discussions with other colleges, and the public and private sectors, with a view to a Scotland-wide rollout of CodeClan as early as next year.

“Establishing a route for people to switch careers into technology is vital to meeting the talent needs of Scotland’s tech sector,” said Mark Logan, chief entrepreneurial adviser to the Scottish government.

“I’m particularly excited about the new CodeClan’s highly scalable delivery model. The three-way partnership between CodeBase, Qwasar, and Scotland’s college network makes possible a national scale programme, combining in-person and online training with world-class, constantly refreshed learning materials.

“By leveraging these assets in combination, the CodeClan model is also now significantly cheaper and removes the payment burden for employers too, which was a problematic area for the prior CodeClan model.”

Martin Boyle, VP of transformation and strategic relationships at CodeBase, also commented: “We have spent the last few months reassessing the CodeClan model, and with Qwasar in place we have a world-class content provider that is aligned with the latest needs of industry, delivered through the Scottish college network.

“While the pilot is relatively small and regionally-focused for now, we envisage Scotland-wide provision in due course.”

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Qwasar Silicon Valley, which describes itself as “the only training provider that trains to Silicon Valley standards in software engineering,” was founded in 2019. Scotland-born co-founder Jennifer Robertson further added: “We are excited to see this launch alongside CodeBase.

“Our programmes train to the advanced technical level required by industry and are competency-based, meaning learners build competency in programming step by step.

“Anyone can do it – yes, it takes effort and there is a lot of coding, but it’s these kinds of courses and hands-on learning pathways that allow anyone to succeed and turn cities and countries into talent powerhouses. The time for this is now!”

The pilot is not currently open for public applications. Individuals and organisations interested in finding out more about future CodeClan programmes can register their interest here.