Why Other Training Providers Focus on Content & Certificates But Miss Confidence
The Problem With How Most Digital Skills Training Works
When organisations commission digital skills training, they're typically looking for one thing - people with new skills who can get jobs or grow businesses. Sounds straightforward, right? But here's what's actually happening in most training rooms across the country, participants are learning content they'll forget, earning certificates that don't change hiring decisions, and leaving with exactly the same amount of confidence they arrived with.
This isn't a failure of the trainers. It's a structural failure of how digital skills training is designed.
Most providers operate on a simple model, deliver content, test knowledge, issue certificate, consider it a win. The logic seems sound. Skills → Certificate → Employment. But it breaks down in the real world because it's missing the crucial middle piece, belief.
Why Content Alone Doesn't Create Change
A participant can learn how to build a basic website. That's knowledge. But learning how to build a website in a training room, with an instructor available, in a low-stakes environment that's fundamentally different from believing you can build a website when you're alone at your desk, a client is waiting, and doubt creeps in.
Here's what other providers miss: employment doesn't happen because of skills. It happens because of confidence.
We've seen this repeatedly over 10 years. Someone completes a digital skills course, gets the certificate, and then... nothing changes. They don't apply for jobs that need those skills. Self-employed people don't use the marketing tactics they learned. Why? Because somewhere between learning and doing, confidence collapsed.
This is a specific problem. It's not that the training was bad. It's that training designed around content delivery doesn't address the psychological barrier between "I know how to do this" and "I believe I can do this."
The Certificate Problem
Certificates are easy to count. They look good on reports. They're tangible proof that training happened. But they're also a red herring for what actually matters.
Employers don't hire people based on certificates from a 5-week digital skills course. They hire people who:
Believe they can learn on the job
Aren't frozen by self-doubt when they encounter something new
Have proved they can finish what they start
Can work with others without feeling impostor syndrome
Traditional training providers optimise for what's easy to measure (completion rates, certificates issued) rather than what actually changes lives (confidence, employment, business growth).
When you fund training that prioritises certificates, you're funding something that looks impressive on paper but doesn't move the needle on the outcomes that matter: jobs filled, businesses growing, long-term unemployment reduced.
What Funders Actually Need
Councils, combined authorities, and other organisations are investing in people's futures. Your job is to fund interventions that work. That means funding training that builds both skills and the confidence to use them.
The distinction matters because it changes what you should be measuring, how you should be evaluating success, and which training partners are worth commissioning.
If a training provider tells you their success metric is "completion rates" or "certificates issued," they're measuring the wrong thing. If they tell you they track employment outcomes 6 months later and business revenue increases post-training, they understand what actually matters.
What Digital Gum Does Differently
We started 10 years ago because we got tired of watching people leave training programmes unchanged. We designed our approach around confidence-building, not content delivery.
Our programmes teach practical digital skills but we teach them in a way that builds confidence simultaneously. Participants work on real projects, support each other, prove to themselves they're capable, and leave knowing they can handle what comes next.
We're honest about our focus, skills without confidence don't create change. That's not marketing language. That's what we've learned actually works.
If you're commissioning training and want to see real outcomes—employment, business growth, reduced long-term unemployment—then you need a partner who understands this fundamental gap.