Thursday 20 March
5:30pm - 9:00pm
In-person
The highlight of #WeekofVocTech. Come together to celebrate, explore and be inspired by vocational technology.
The highlight of #WeekofVocTech. Come together to celebrate, explore and be inspired by vocational technology.
Bringing together tech innovators, learning providers, employers and investors the VocTech Showcase from the Ufi VocTech Trust provided a unique opportunity to celebrate and share the impact of vocational technology, get hands-on with a selection of Ufi-supported tech, and strengthen connections across the voctech community.
Our new venue
The Ufi VocTech Showcase 2025 was hosted at CodeNode in London’s Liverpool street, a purpose built venue for digital, creative and innovation events.
2025 image gallery
Live demonstrations
The Showcase 2025 returns with an inspiring collection of vocational technology to explore. Meet the teams behind the tech and try it out for yourself.
Podcast style learning
The Assemble You audio library offers over 170 concise, 10-minute podcast-style lessons, covering essential professional development topics from leadership to productivity—perfect for quick, impactful learning on the go.
Complementing this, the Expert Series features over 50 engaging interviews with industry-leading subject matter experts, offering in-depth insights and fresh perspectives on cutting-edge trends and challenges.
Whether your team needs bite-sized training for busy schedules or a deep dive into expert-led discussions, Assemble You enables staff to learn on the go.
Part of the Ufi Ventures investment portfolio.
Immersive learning for health and social care
Health and social care workers face significant barriers to learning. They are often time-poor, struggling to keep up with the cost of living in a low-paying industry, and unable to take time off work for classroom-based training. This is particularly acute for those in remote and rural areas where the additional cost and time of travel adds another barrier.
Care Reality are tackling these challenges and revolutionising training in the health and social care sectors through immersive technologies. A 2020 NHS-funded study demonstrated the effectiveness of Care Reality’s approach, showing a 76% increase in learner confidence, a 230% improvement in knowledge retention, and significant cost savings for organisations. Their flagship platform, FLO, leverages extended reality (XR) to create realistic care scenarios, helping learners build confidence and practical skills in a safe environment.
Supported by grant funding from Ufi VocTech Trust.
Serious games for rail industry training
Security is a major challenge for UK Railway operators and the British Transport Police at the UK’s 2,500+ railway stations. It relies on the awareness and vigilance of a huge number of staff, contractors, and third-party retailers who don’t all have easy or equal access to training. Chrome Angel are using "Serious Games" to tackle this challenge, providing low cost training deployed at scale on mobile devices.
At the VocTech Showcase 2025 guests will have the chance to test their skills on a VR simulation game developed to raise staff awareness of railway security threats. The simulation helps learners build competence and confidence when identifying security threats and following procedures. Set in a realistic and detailed virtual railway environment, users will be challenged to find, assess, and correctly respond to randomised security threats. They will talk to characters, investigate objects, avoid ‘red herrings’ that will test their unconscious biases and assumptions, and apply industry standard principles to assess threats and implement the correct security response procedures.
Will you end the night at the top of our leader board?
Supported by grant funding from Ufi VocTech Trust.
Empowering workforces with data literacy
Businesses spend hundreds of billions of pounds each year on data headcount, infrastructure, and technology but executives, managers and business users fail to exploit the value, due to poor data literacy. As workers are increasingly interacting with data as part of their role, the need for a more holistic approach to data literacy is becoming essential.
Data Literacy Academy is dedicated to bridging the data skills gap within enterprises by offering comprehensive educational programs aimed at fostering a data-driven culture.
The Academy's live and on-demand courses are delivered by industry data leaders and provide personalised 1:1 support, ensuring high engagement and practical outcomes for learners across all skill levels. These programs are designed to empower teams to confidently utilise data tools, enhance data governance, and drive better business decisions.
Part of the Ufi Ventures investment portfolio.
Immersive Hydrogen training for colleges
Hydrogen is an emerging low carbon solution with clear policies set out by UK and Scottish Governments in their Climate Emergency planning. Ensuring the UK has the right skills and capabilities will be critical to achieving their hydrogen ambitions and for Scotland to become a leading nation in the production of reliable, competitive and sustainable hydrogen.
There is currently no access to reliable training equipment for those looking to enter the hydrogen industry. Training requires costly specialist equipment to grow the skills required by industry and first-hand experience is not normally available to trainees. As an emerging technology, colleges don’t have access to the industrial hydrogen equipment required to build the workforce.
ESP is overcoming these barriers with VR-based training. Using an interactive walk-through of a hydrogen refuelling station, learners gain exposure to an industrial environment that would otherwise be off limits. Learners are able to interact with their environment as if they were a Hydrogen technician, testing out prior knowledge and skills safely and giving learners considering entry into this industry an experience of the working conditions and environment.
Supported by grant funding from Ufi VocTech Trust.
Leveraging AI translation
(Classroom demo at 6:40pm)
Hydrogen is an emerging low carbon solution with clear policies set out by UK and Scottish Governments in their Climate Emergency planning. Ensuring the UK has the right skills and capabilities will be critical to achieving their hydrogen ambitions and for Scotland to become a leading nation in the production of reliable, competitive and sustainable hydrogen.
There is currently no access to reliable training equipment for those looking to enter the hydrogen industry. Training requires costly specialist equipment to grow the skills required by industry and first-hand experience is not normally available to trainees. As an emerging technology, colleges don’t have access to the industrial hydrogen equipment required to build the workforce.
ESP is overcoming these barriers with VR-based training. Using an interactive walk-through of a hydrogen refuelling station, learners gain exposure to an industrial environment that would otherwise be off limits. Learners are able to interact with their environment as if they were a Hydrogen technician, testing out prior knowledge and skills safely and giving learners considering entry into this industry an experience of the working conditions and environment.
Supported by grant funding from Ufi VocTech Trust.
Accelerating English language learning
FlashAcademy is the UK's leading English language learning platform designed to enhance workplace communication. It aims to improve employee communication, safety, and productivity by offering tailored learning experiences accessible across multiple devices supporting more than 30 home languages.
By empowering employees with effective communication skills, FlashAcademy helps organisations unlock their workforce's full potential, even in linguistically diverse environments, leading to enhanced overall performance.
Part of the Ufi Ventures investment portfolio.
Bringing learning to life with immersive learning environments
Metaverse Learning use virtual reality, virtual environments and augmented reality to produce engaging and immersive online training experiences that bring learning to life.
Working with partners across Further Education, industry, associations and employers, Metaverse Learning is developing a library of immersive learning scenarios, covering a wide range of subject areas.
Each program is co-created with education and industry partners to fulfil sector-specific learning needs, helping to transform learning, build confidence, increase attainment and decrease costs.
Part of the Ufi Ventures investment portfolio.
Helping young people earn, save and learn
MyPocketSkill provides opportunities for young people to gain financial independence and employability skills. The award-winning platform connects 13 - 25 year olds with families and small businesses to offer their skills in tutoring, music coaching, photography, social media, digital design and more - all while getting paid for their skills.
More than just a way to earn some extra money, MyPocketSkill is dedicated to financial education equipping their young users with the tools and behavioural nudges to gently encourage positive money habits. In addition, young people on the platform are being encouraged to develop their employability skills with the help of an AI Learning Support Assistant (AILSA). In partnership with Ufi VocTech Trust, MyPocketSkill is developing a copilot to help young people on MyPocketSkill acquire and use in-demand AI skills. AILSA will provide guidance and feedback to learners as they work on digital and creative projects for real customers, helping them develop their skills for the future world of work.
To date, nearly 200,000 young people have signed-up to start earning and learning on MyPocketSkill.
Part of the Ufi Ventures investment portfolio.
Supporting career progression for non-registered healthcare workers
The UK’s non-registered healthcare workforce, typically employed as Healthcare Assistants (HCAs) and in the broader private sector, are largely ‘hidden’ to the vocational learning sector despite their potential to address a pressing skills deficit.
The team at the University of Derby are helping HCAs move into Trainee Nursing Associate apprenticeships by improving engagement or re-engagement with vocational education.
Using games-based learning technology learners access a series of integrated modules focused on the pain points that deter them from accessing a Trainee Nursing Associate apprenticeship. The support covers the end-to-end process: from becoming aware of the opportunity, developing confidence to apply, reactivating dormant skills and creating new functional skills, application completion and onboarding.
The solution is designed to promote collective learning, generating the ability to ‘play’ together. Disconnected learners can participate in peer support networks to build confidence and resilience, and also engage directly with existing professionals. The end result is a community of learning drawing on peer support to grow learner confidence and skills to progress into Nursing.
Supported by grant funding from Ufi VocTech Trust.