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Polishing up skills within the workplace has been categorised under many guises including academies, in-house training or development programmes.

Whatever format it takes, the fact that there is a drive for increased professionalism and higher qualifications has made a significant impact on the financial industry across the board.

But for those about to enter or are already in the industry, is it essential to swot up on those skills?

Beverley Wells, compliance and operations director for City Trustees, a subsidiary of the Lighthouse Group, believes it is and decided she wanted to take up the opportunity to obtain a professional qualification.

Ms Wells, who joined in January last year, completed the Institute of Leadership and Management Award alongside her full time job during July to October 2007.

Taking part in tutorials and assignments relating to management skills and qualities, she studied between Orpington College and Brighton, one of the three main learning centres in the UK.

Ms Wells – who also had internal courses off-site, TCF events, online learning and training days together with discussion groups, as part of the intense course – praised the combination to cover all bases and said: “I think this was quite a powerful tool, as it was about sharing information and being within a group where you could voice your own opinions.

“We looked at management theory and hierarchy background information on how and why people behave in certain ways.

“Now I do monthly one-to-ones and team meetings with those who work on self-invested personal pensions and small self-administered teams in roundtable discussions. It promotes a broader understanding in a working relationship.”

Ms Wells added that as well as heightening technical management awareness, the course also addressed soft skills – something that is not taught in textbooks.

She added: “You cannot just have technical skills and I do not think people realise how many skills you need. It was also about listening, reacting, empathising and responding.”

Ms Wells also pointed out that there is a challenge to raise awareness for young people who are unaware of what financial services has to offer.

She said: “There is a huge scope of jobs and it is unfortunate this is not known. To tackle this, it is a combination of the industry wanting to change things and the FSA will want to change things in the future.

“The financial services industry is seen as an older industry, whereas in reality, there are jobs for life. The training I have just completed shows you can go through different routes and have a career there if you want to. There is something for everybody.”

With 3000 learners on the programme – studying at the centres or undertaking courses – the academy has a target of getting 15,000 learners through the programme in three years.

The lead centres are based in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Norwich, Farnborough, with satellite centres that support that lead centre in the regions.

It has a government structure with a national employer board, and within each of the regions, there is a regional board which is chaired by a local financial services employer.

Currently with seven lead providers covering the seven regions the academy aims to have 30 providers around the region in the UK.

Sylvia Perrins, director of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services, explained how the academy worked. She said: “It is set up like a network where we have high quality training providers around the country. They are established which have strong financial providers in clusters, so therefore needs on a local, regional and national basis.

“What we are aiming to do is ensure there is a better educated financial services work force to where the skills – or lack of skills – need to be identified.

“We are focusing on those areas to develop training programmes to fill the gaps and some of the things that are emerging, such as the need for better training for young people to be more job-ready for those wider skills.

“There is very much an emphasis on an employer led initiative, helping to shape the sort of training and development programmes.”

The year-old academy was set up after the Financial Services Skills Council undertook some research of the industry to determine what skills gaps shortages there were and what key things emerged.

The key things research revealed included the need for the right attitude, good social skills, business level literacy and knowledge of the sector.

A key action point included a training programme for young people that will give them a structured career.

Ms Perrins said: “The area we will focus on is the higher level skills of looking at university level. We are focusing initially on young people and how they can progress. We want to give everybody to develop these skills and make sure we have seamless way to get through.

“It is our responsibility to respond and set up the infrastructure to enable that training to happen and generate new talent the industry needs.

“For the next six to 12 months we will be looking at curriculum as we want our academy partners to work with schools to be able to link young people into academy programmes.

“We are trying to introduce financial capability vital life skills. This has a knock on benefit in introducing youngsters into the world of finance and money. It is a good stepping stone to raise awareness.”

In addition, the academy targets adults who want a second career and return to work.

One example is the Tower Hamlets academy centre in London, which is an intensive programme for people looking for careers in industry.

Providing the SII introductory qualification and promoting employability skills of working in a team, problem-solving and good communication skills, the recruits are encouraged to find a work placement in Canary Wharf, to get the practical experience they need.

Ms Perrins added: “We are getting people job-ready for this industry and this is about encouraging new talent. The other aspect is about how to develop the current workforce and what the sorts of skills we need to help. Research showed that leadership and management skills are needed, as they have good technical skills, but they are not fully equipped to be able to manage people.

“We have been trying to develop some flexible trends solutions or being partly delivered online, partly in workshops. The skills gap from last year developed new apprenticeship frameworks and they cover three key elements.

“They cover the professional qualification that somebody needs to undertake job role, provide evidence they can perform job role and also provide key skill elements. This is an apprenticeship route where key training tools are used either to get new recruits in or use it as framework to train existing staff.”

So it seems whatever age or career ladder stage an individual is at, learning off the job is just as vitally important as learning on it. And with a new breed of talent coming into the industry, regulators and qualification bodies need to keep one step ahead to keep financial services in competition with other career choices. What is also clear, is that swotting up and striking up skills is here to stay.

Girlie Garduce is a features writer of Financial Adviser