about us | CollabGroup

Collab Group is a national membership body of FE colleges and college groups. There are two main pillars of our work: policy influencing and commercial activities.

Commercial activities

Collab Group offers services to both public and private sector clients. We work with our members to deliver nationwide apprenticeship and training services to large employers, as well as expert consultation services relating to skills and education. The expertise of our network produces meaningful solutions to a range of skills-related issues:

We offer commercial training services for organisations looking to bring new talent into their business, or who wish to upskill or retrain their existing workforce.
We support employers in critical industries to make the most of their apprenticeship levy as we work in partnership to strategically plan their current and future talent needs.

Policy influencing

We work to raise the profile and prestige of further education colleges and demonstrate the critical role they play in creating a more skilled and prosperous society. We engage with our members, government and industry to influence the implementation of skills policy at both a national and regional level.

We publish thought leadership on the most significant issues impacting the sector including the development of professional and technical skills, policy implementation, and sector funding. We regularly engage with stakeholders in both government and industry to shape solutions that will jointly benefit the sector and the economy.

Our Purpose

Collab Group colleges, using our UK wide collective capability, work with civic and business communities to influence and lead the future of technical and professional education development and delivery to address the challenges of inclusive economic growth.

Our partners bring external expertise and insights to assist Collab Group and its members to achieve our strategic ambitions. We collaborate with partners in the skills and employment sector as well as organisations in higher education, the legal industry, labour market analysts, awarding organisations and more. By leveraging a broad base of expertise, we can fulfil our ambitions to transform the current system of technical and professional education.

Janet Gayle

Executive Assistant to CEO

Executive Assistant to the CEO and Office Manager, she joined the team in June 2017. As a legal qualified PA, with over 10 years in administration and office management roles, she has a vast amount of experience in small and large organisation in the private and public sector.

Tom Lowe

Director of Policy and Marketing

Tom joined Collab Group in April 2016. He is the leader of the Policy team and works to raise the profile of Collab Group colleges both inside and outside the FE sector. He previously worked as a Development Coordinator for the NHS.

Ian Pretty

Chief Executive

Chief Executive since September 2015, he has had a range of senior roles in a variety of organisations in the public and commercial sector. He deals with a wide range of stakeholders in the development of sustainable technical and professional education to enable a transformation of the productive capacity of the UK economy.

Ash Austin

Commercial Director

Ash joined Collab Group in July 2020, he has a background in identifying, negotiating and winning business across a variety of corporate and public sector organisations. His background working with a variety of tech solutions has helped organisations like Civil Service Faststream digitise their graduate recruitment process and WhiteHat Group innovate their apprenticeship onboarding process.

Jack Havard

Commercial and Marketing Executive

Jack joined Collab Group in 2020. He supports both the Policy and Commercial teams. His background in advertising and business development allows him to successfully support both teams in their plans to help both out partners and colleges grow.

Cosria Ali

Operations Executive

Cosria joined the Collab Group in April 2021 as Operations Executive, she has held a range of roles in Further Education Colleges as well as Independent Training Providers. She manages the relationship between partner providers and employers across the different apprenticeships.

Martynas Leskevic

Operations Coordinator

Martynas joined Collab Group in 2021. He supports the Commercial team and mainly focuses on coordinating the Corporate & Public contracts. His background working in various operational roles around hospitality and tech industries will allow him to develop and upgrade the existing processes to achieve the success for our partners and colleges