Leeds Health and Care Academy

What Leeds Health and Care Academy does

Leeds Health and Care Academy is a publicly funded workforce development partnership established in 2019 and operating under the Leeds Health and Care Partnership umbrella in the United Kingdom. Its mandate is to coordinate learning, career pathways, and workforce planning across the roughly 60,000 people who work in the Leeds health and care system, addressing chronic shortages in social care, nursing, and primary care. The Academy is funded by five core partners — Leeds City Council, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, Leeds Teaching Hospitals, Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, and NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board — and supplements this with external grants from sources such as the Rayne Foundation (£150,000) and the West Yorkshire Health and Growth Accelerator (£620,000), bringing over £2 million of new external funding into 2024/25.

The Academy's core delivery rests on three digital platforms offered free to users. The Learning Portal hosts over 100 items of e-learning, bite-sized video content, and structured development programmes across categories including Delivering Care, Diversity & Inclusion, Health & Wellbeing, Personal Development, Team Working/Leadership & Coaching, and Careers & Digital Skills, and has registered 304 organisations with over 15,000 users. Career Compass Leeds is a person-centred careers platform helping residents explore health and social care pathways, with the recently launched Your Health, Your Career tool adding health-informed career navigation for staff with mental health, MSK, or neurodivergent needs. The Talent Hub is a citywide recruitment and matching service that, across its lifetime, has supported over 2,200 people, achieved a 92% 12-month retention rate for placed candidates, and in Q1 2026 supported 367 individuals, helped 79 into employment, and delivered 52 accredited qualifications.

The business model is fundamentally partnership- and grant-funded rather than commercial. All learning and career services are free to health and care employees, volunteers, unpaid carers, and students; there is no user pricing. Value is monetised indirectly through funded workforce projects — clinical placements, apprenticeships, the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training, the Partnerships Leading Care Fellowship, and inclusion programmes — governed through the Leeds One Workforce Strategic Board and the Academy Steering Group. Strategic priorities are set by the Leeds One Workforce Strategy 2030, and delivery is led by Director Kate O'Connell and four department heads covering One Workforce, Collaborative Workforce Planning, Learning & Culture, and Workforce and Partnership Development, supported by an OD/culture manager. Distribution is achieved through direct partnership engagement with NHS trusts, local government, primary care, universities, and the VCSE sector, supplemented by a citywide website, LinkedIn presence, quarterly newsletters, and events.

Name

Leeds Health and Care Academy

Legal name

Leeds Health and Care Academy

Website

https://leedshealthandcareacademy.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Leeds Health and Care Academy is a publicly funded workforce development partnership coordinating learning, career pathways, and recruitment across the 60,000-strong Leeds health and care system through the Learning Portal, Career Compass, and Talent Hub, funded by five NHS and local-authority partners.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Healthcare Workforce Development

NAICS

Professional and Management Development Training (611430), Educational Services (611), Technical and Trade Schools (6115)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Healthcare & Life Sciences (EDAAAPAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Workforce & Career Transition Noncredit Programs (EDAAAEAC), Apprenticeships, Internships & Work-Based Learning Programs (BPACANAK), Leadership, Service Learning & Volunteer-to-Career Pathways (EDAMAKAJ)

Keywords

• Workforce development services
• Healthcare training platforms
• Career exploration tools
• NHS workforce planning
• Social care education

Headquarters

HQ city

Leeds

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Partnership Funding: Funded by five core partners: Leeds City Council, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, Leeds Teaching Hospital, Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, and NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board.
2. External Funding: Secured external funding from various sources including Rayne Foundation (£150,000 for adult social care workforce support) and West Yorkshire Health and Growth Accelerator (£620k allocation for health and social care workforce).

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

The Leeds Health and Care Academy delivers free workforce development, learning and career services for the Leeds health and care sector. Its core deliverables are three digital platforms — the Learning Portal (over 100 e-learning items), Career Compass Leeds (career exploration and the Your Health, Your Career tool) and the Talent Hub (employment, training and volunteering matching) — complemented by collaborative workforce planning, apprenticeships, clinical placements, leadership development and innovation projects delivered with NHS, local government, education and VCSE partners.

Product overview

Leeds Health and Care Academy operates as a workforce development and education organisation, not a technology product company. Its core offerings consist of three interconnected digital platforms: the Leeds Health and Care Learning Portal (providing free e-learning and development programmes), Career Compass Leeds (a career exploration platform), and the Talent Hub (connecting people with health and care career opportunities). These platforms are complemented by the Your Health, Your Career digital tool embedded within Career Compass, which supports staff with health needs in making career decisions. The Academy also delivers numerous workforce innovation projects spanning children and young people engagement, clinical placement expansion, health equity development, organisational development, and workforce mobility across the Leeds health and care system.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Career Compass: An interactive careers platform showcasing the breadth of careers and job opportunities across the health and care sector in Leeds.
• Learning Portal
• Talent Hub

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 2,200 people supported by Talent Hub into employment, training and support
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core and key.

• Leeds City CouncilcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCore funding partner providing strategic oversight and support for adult social care workforce development. Works collaboratively on the Leeds One Workforce Programme and workforce innovation projects.
• Leeds Community Healthcare NHS TrustcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCore funding partner and key delivery organisation for workforce innovation projects including Children and Young People programme and Workforce Mobility.
• Leeds Teaching HospitalcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCore funding partner and major NHS trust providing clinical placement opportunities and workforce development support.
• Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation TrustcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCore funding partner and mental health trust contributing to workforce planning and development initiatives.
• NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care BoardcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCore funding partner providing strategic oversight of health and care workforce across West Yorkshire, including the West Yorkshire Health and Growth Accelerator programme.
• University of LeedskeyStrategic or Co-development PartnerEducational partner delivering Nursing Associate Apprenticeship programme and collaborative workforce development initiatives.
• Leeds Beckett UniversitykeyStrategic or Co-development PartnerEducational partner for health and care workforce development and training programmes.
• Leeds Trinity UniversitykeyStrategic or Co-development PartnerEducational partner supporting health and care education and student engagement.
• Leeds City CollegekeyStrategic or Co-development PartnerEducational partner providing health and social care training courses, functional skills support, and student career engagement.
• Leeds Academic Health PartnershipkeyStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic health partnership aligning future of health and care with support and development across the partnership.
• Forum CentralkeyStrategic or Co-development PartnerVoluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector partner connecting community organisations with health and care workforce initiatives.
• Leeds GP ConfederationkeyStrategic or Co-development PartnerPrimary care partner supporting general practice workforce development and neighbourhood health initiatives.

Scale indicators13 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Regional players

• NHS Education for Scotland (NES): Scotland's national health education and training body, providing workforce learning, career pathways and digital learning platforms similar to the Academy's Learning Portal and Career Compass. Different geography but directly analogous operating model.
• Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW): Statutory national body in Wales for health workforce education, training and planning. Highly comparable operating model to the Leeds Academy (city/region-wide workforce development) but operates in a different UK nation.
• CapitalNurse: London-wide nursing workforce programme bringing together NHS trusts, universities and partners to address nursing workforce challenges. Highly comparable in structure (multi-stakeholder health workforce partnership) and mission but operates in London.

Broad incumbents

• King's Fund: Independent health policy and workforce development organisation producing research, leadership programmes and workforce insights that parallel the Academy's Workforce Insights and collaborative planning functions.
• NHS England Workforce, Training and Education: National NHS body responsible for workforce planning, education and training across England. Operates at a much larger scale than the Leeds Academy with similar objectives around NHS workforce development, but is a broad incumbent rather than a city-level specialist.
• NHS Leadership Academy: National body providing leadership and management development for NHS staff, overlapping with the Academy's Partnerships Leading Care Fellowship and system leadership offerings. Operates as a broad incumbent at national scale.

Others

• Leeds Academic Health Partnership: Strategic partnership between Leeds's NHS trusts, universities and local authority. Listed as a key partner of the Academy; adjacent ecosystem organisation with overlapping membership and shared workforce and research objectives.

Direct peers

• UK Healthcare Apprenticeships (Trailblazer) Group: National network developing apprenticeship standards and pathways for the health sector. Directly comparable to the Academy's Nursing Associate Apprenticeship and clinical placement programmes.
• Skills for Care: England-wide workforce development organisation specifically focused on adult social care, similar to the Academy's remit across Leeds. Provides learning resources, workforce data and development programmes for the social care workforce.

Emerging players

• Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network: Regional health innovation and workforce partnership operating across Yorkshire and Humber, adjacent to the Academy's West Yorkshire reach. Less workforce-focused but a comparable partnership-driven health ecosystem organisation.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/leeds-health-and-care-academy

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Leeds Health and Care Academy