About City & Guilds

For over 140 years the organisation have worked with people, organisations and economies to help them identify and develop the skills they need to thrive. They understand the life changing link between skills development, social mobility, prosperity and success.

City & Guilds is a Royal Chartered Institute and a registered charity: everything they do is charitable. They invest their surplus into expanding and enhancing their solutions across all of their brands, to meet the changing needs of organisations and industries. And through the Foundation they amplify their purpose by focusing on high impact social investment, recognition and advocacy programmes which remove barriers to getting a job, celebrate best practice on the job and advocate for jobs of the future.

Their purpose is the same today as it has always been – to help people, organisations and economies develop their skills for growth. Today, the Group consists of City & Guilds, ILM, Kineo, The Oxford Group, Gen2, Intertrain and Trade Skills 4U. Their brands provide a broad and imaginative range of products and services that help people achieve their potential through work-based learning. Together, they set the standards for corporate learning, on-the-job development, and skills recognition.

The Heritage

Their heritage makes them uniquely positioned to anticipate the future of work and learning. The City and Guilds of London Institute was founded by the City of London and 16 livery companies (the Guilds) in 1878 and granted a Royal Charter in 1900. A registered charity, the Institute remains the awarding body for City & Guilds and ILM qualifications.