Reed Global, a family-run group of companies committed to improving lives through work, has officially announced its acquisition of Code Nation, one of the UK’s fastest-growing independent digital and technical training providers. The deal will complete Reed’s total tech talent solution, streamlining the process for tech businesses to find the talent they need in a competitive recruitment market.
However, the financial details were not disclosed.
With this acquisition, Reed can provide specialized tech training, helping close the growing skills gap in the tech industry. It will help widen the talent pool available for businesses by reskilling those interested in the sector and offering opportunities for businesses to upskill their current employees to support talent retention and development. This deal will also allow the company to drive better inclusivity in the technology sector. Reed can use its recruitment expertise to source underrepresented talent, including women or those from disadvantaged backgrounds. To reskill such talent, it can tap into Code Nation’s technology experts and industry knowledge.
With experience in 20 specialized industries worldwide and access to the most significant international candidate databases, Reed Global is dedicated to positioning people at the centre of everything it does to fulfil its mission of enhancing lives through work. The firm pioneered specialized recruitment in the UK in the early 1960s. After seven decades, it has grown to become the world’s most well-known family-run recruitment company, with offices throughout the UK, Europe, the USA, the Middle East, and East Asia.
Speaking on the deal, James Reed CBE, Chairman and CEO of Reed, said:
The stark gap in digital technology skills is a known, wide-scale problem. The pace of change and fierce competition for technology and digital skills is far outstripping the workforce. We realized that more than partnering with a training provider was needed. We needed to be able to recruit and reskill new talent or upskill existing employees at a pace that matches market demands. Acquiring Code Nation allows us to do just that.
James added:
In order to overcome chronic skills shortages, Reed Talent Solutions’ ‘recruit, train and deploy’ solution is designed to attract, reskill or upskill, and deploy new talent. By having Code Nation’s expertise on our side, we can offer more bespoke solutions for training to help resolve any particular, unique pain points that businesses are experiencing and begin to narrow the persistent skills gap the technology industry is battling.
Code Nation was founded in 2018 and quickly became one of the fastest-growing and award-winning digital and technical training providers with a pioneering ethos around ‘creating employable talent’. By combining forces, the companies aim to work with clients to keep abreast of current market needs by understanding specific technology developments to ensure that the training curriculum matches demands. The current training programmes will focus on four core subjects that are firmly in demand: software engineering, data, cyber security, and robotic process automation.
David Muir, Code Nation’s Founder, who will continue to be involved in the business as Managing Partner, shared his enthusiasm about the acquisition, stating:
This acquisition represents a pivotal moment for our colleagues at Code Nation, our learners, our funding partners and our employers, as well as Reed. We are excited to see this merging of complementary strengths and resources to create something unique in the market. We will be able to offer a comprehensive suite of solutions to employers struggling to fill those technical roles and to job seekers struggling to find their footing in the competitive tech space. By joining forces with a well-established and renowned company like Reed, with a mission of ‘improving lives through work’, we can continue to fulfil our mantra of creating work-ready, employable talent.
As part of the transaction, David Muir will take the Managing Partner post. He will be joined by Michele Smith, managing director of client services at Reed Talent Solutions, who will take on the additional role of managing director of Code Nation.
