Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Information for employers

We want to reassure you that we continue to remain open and that you can contact us as normal regarding our usual learning and development solutions for your employees. We will continue to offer high-quality distance education via our apprenticeships, degree courses and other qualifications and look forward to discussing your business requirements to find the best solution for you.

Please note that it may take longer than usual for us to be able to answer your queries and put in place the learning and development requirements you need. We thank you for your patience.

Tools to help you now

We also offer bite-sized online courses in an enormous range of subjects, which you can access at any time on our OpenLearn site. Many of these may be of particular interest to you and your employees, for example courses on soft skills and a wide range of other business-related subjects. There is also a collection of resources to support small to medium-sized enterprises. Get started today: browse free courses on OpenLearn.

The Department for Education has launched The Skills Toolkit which gives access to free digital and numeracy courses to staff - inlcuding those on furlough. Course providers include OpenLearn and FutureLearn. OpenLearn courses are also available via Skills Development Scotland's My World of Work site.

We will continue to update this page with more information and advice for employers over the coming days. We will also be sharing emails with useful tools to help you and your employees over the coming weeks, such as thought leadership around flexible learning, webinars and free bite-sized online courses. Click here to sign up.

Current student information

If you have employees studying with us, they have been contacted regarding support options. The latest updates can be found on the OU Help Centre.