Paradise Birmingham welcomes
students for Future Skills Unlocked
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The £1.2 billion mixed use redevelopment at the heart of the city, Paradise Birmingham, has again welcomed students to the estate as part of its growing community partnerships with local secondary schools.

With work experience workshops at several of the estate’s office and leisure occupiers, this year’s Paradise Future Skills Unlocked event is the largest collaborative event between the estate, its occupiers, and local schools to date.

Four Birmingham schools are now involved in the year-round programme at Paradise, which engages with local school students as they begin to think about their future career choices, while exposing them to the world of work and the modern workplace. The schools involved are Aston Manor Academy, Bordesley Green Girls School, King Edward VI Balaam Wood Academy and Tile Cross Academy.

The range of activities on the day included sessions on Speed Networking, Careers Insights, Life Skills, Future of Work, a Design Sprint and Wellbeing in the Workplace.

Social Value specialist, Ahead Partnership, works to strengthen the talent pipeline and improve diversity, inclusion and social mobility and has worked with Paradise for more than a year, delivering expert input to the estate’s educational and community engagement programme.

With an expanded programme and more schools, students and occupiers involved this year, the workshops were delivered by Paradise office occupiers DLA Piper, Dains, JLL and Quilter Cheviot, as well as leisure operator F1® Arcade, and generously hosted by One Centenary Way-based law firm Mills & Reeve.

Volunteers from a further range of Paradise occupiers also took part, including individuals from Albert’s Schloss, Arup, AtkinsRéalis, Goldman Sachs, MEPC, Mills & Reeve and Cow & Sow.

As well as talks and presentations, there were also a range of structured visits to different parts of the estate for the students, as well as an orienteering challenge.

Paradise is dedicated to having a positive impact on society by supporting local communities across the city through a wide range of employment, educational, charitable, voluntary and social engagement initiatives.

The development and its partners have already contributed more than £88 million of social and economic value locally, created thousands of new jobs and is working with the city council’s Employment Access Team (EAT) to match job opportunities with hard to reach groups from across every part of Birmingham.

Megan Lipp, Head of Growth at Ahead Partnership, said: “The Future Skills Unlocked flagship event and ongoing programme is driving engagement and opportunity with students from secondary schools in different parts of Birmingham and beyond, allowing Paradise and its occupiers to truly reach out and engage with the future generation of talent.

“Thanks to MEPC and many of the Paradise occupiers, we’re opening the eyes of young people to career routes and roles they may not have thought about before. It is this opportunity to change perspectives about the world of work open and showcase the many careers at Paradise that we, and the schools, are most excited about. We can’t wait to keep building the programme here at Paradise and extending it to more students and communities in and around Birmingham.”

Neil Pearson, Head of Responsible Business for Mills & Reeve, added: ”Reaching out to local school students demonstrates the commitment of organisations like Mills & Reeve and other employers at Paradise to include, encourage and support the next generation of young professionals in Birmingham and the wider region. We firmly support initiatives that help drive change and promote social inclusion, which is exactly what the Future Skills Unlocked programme is all about.”

The Paradise redevelopment is being brought forward through Paradise Circus Limited Partnership (PCLP), a private-public joint venture with Birmingham City Council. The private sector funding is being managed by the international business of Federated Hermes Private Markets, which has partnered with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) on the first phase of the development and for One Centenary Way. MEPC is the development and asset manager.

Paradise sits in the country’s largest city centre Enterprise Zone and has already benefited from investment in enabling and infrastructure works.