Four academies aimed at encouraging 150,000 young people and adults into industries such as IT has been given the go-ahead by skills secretary John Denham.

Skill academies in enterprise, power and social care will join the IT venture in order to develop the abilities and talents of young professionals hoping to extend their strengths in new and evolving areas of employment which are predicted to be the future sectors in Britain.

Mr Denham said that now more than ever before, the UK needs to develop a wide array of training opportunities for people wanting to "realise their ambitions" and feel empowered.

He added: "Skills academies put employers in the driving seat to shape training for their industries, building the world-beating workforce that will improve productivity and competitiveness across the country."

John Denham is the Labour MP for Southampton Itchen and is currently working for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent) In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'