The National Heritage Training Group (NHTG) has been awarded the largest single amount of funding of the 54 successful projects in the new £17million Heritage Lottery Fund Skills for the Future programme.

The £932,000 funding will provide high quality, work-based training and skills development opportunities in England to equip people for a career in the built heritage sector or for those already working in the sector to expand and improve their knowledge and skills sets. This will be achieved by the NHTG working with English Heritage, The National Trust, ConstructionSkills and regional partners in England.

The project will offer 60 variable-length traditional building craft skills placements, to be developed with regional partners across England. This will greatly enhance the capacity of the built heritage sector to deliver sustainable training and share good practice through a range of training - from taster courses, Heritage Specialist Apprenticeship Programmes and mentoring - leading to recognised heritage skills qualifications. Training and live site-based work experience will be available for people from new entrants, career changers and those looking to up-skill from mainstream construction.

Now that the funding has been awarded the NHTG is busy developing the training plan and funded placements will be available towards the end of 2010/beginning of 2011. For further information, visit the NHTG website.