Collective X has scrapped the fixed application windows on its Digital Skills Impact Fund and made R200-million available for the next year to employers of entry-level digital skills and digital skills training providers providing recognised digital qualifications and permanent employment for youth.
Collective X, the NPO that coordinates South Africa’s National Digital Skills Plan, brings together employers, funders, training providers and government behind a single, shared approach to closing the country’s digital skills gap, eliminating youth unemployment, and boosting economic growth for the country.
The Digital Skills Impact Fund is one of the levers it uses to achieve this.
The Fund is one of the largest outcomes-based skills funds in South Africa by value. With current multi-year financing commitments of over R600-million, R200-million of which is committed to the next 12 months, the Fund does not pay for training inputs, but rather co-pays employers, aggregators and implementation partners for delivering verified outcomes – helping to build an inclusive, employer-led pipeline of entry-level ICT talent for South Africa’s digital economy.
Funding for impact and scale
The move away from funding windows reflects the growth and maturity of the Digital Skills Impact Fund since its launch in 2024. To date, more than 1 800 young people have participated, or are currently participating, in programmes supported through the Fund across all nine provinces, moving through SFIA-aligned training and work-integrated learning (WIL) into quality employment.
Ninety seven percent of participants have been absorbed into employment, with more than 75% of them still employed after six months.
“The Fund has shown that paying for results, rather than for training inputs, connects young people to the skills and workplace experience employers actually need,” says Nsika Mutasa, executive for the Digital Skills Impact Fund at Collective X. “Removing fixed application windows means we can respond when employers and implementation partners are ready to launch a programme instead of asking them to work according to a funding calendar that may not suit their timelines.”
The Fund is now operating at a scale where opening and closing applications a few times a year has become a bottleneck rather than a useful control, says Mutasa.
The Fund’s new “Always On” approach to financing is expected to see the number of active employer and implementation partners delivering programmes grow from 30 to 100 by the end of 2026.
Training for real, sustainable jobs
Training on Fund-supported programmes is mapped to the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), the international standard used by employers to describe technology roles and skill levels. This means a young person’s training corresponds to specific skills in a recognised job rather than to a generic certificate.
The Fund is also designed to promote meaningful representation among beneficiaries, with participation targets of 85% Black African, 70% women and 1,5% people with disabilities.
Employers must be able to demonstrate that they have quality job opportunities for the full allocation they are applying for and are expected to place at least 70% of their participants at the end of their workplace experience.
Every application is assessed by a Technical Evaluation Committee made up of independent industry experts, who review the quality of the training, the credibility of the work placement, the employer’s ability to deliver, and whether their programme creates new jobs rather than subsidising existing ones.
Who can apply, and for what
The Fund currently supports two routes into employment:
- The full route to competence: for young people with no post-school technology training, combining foundational training with a structured period of paid, supervised work experience, called work-integrated learning.
- The workplace experience route: for young people who have already completed relevant technology training and are ready to move straight into structured workplace experience, called work-integrated learning.
Applications are open to employers, delivery partners, and aggregators; organisations that assemble and manage groups of young people on behalf of several smaller employers, so that businesses too small to run a cohort on their own can still participate.
The bigger picture
“This only works if the whole system moves together,” says Evan Jones, CEO of Collective X. “When funders, employers, training providers and young people are all working towards the same verified outcomes, you get a pipeline that businesses can actually hire from and a real route into the digital economy for young people.”
South Africa currently produces around 20 000 digitally skilled workers a year. Under the National Digital Skills Plan, Collective X is working to double that to more than 40 000 a year by 2030, and to help 500 000 young people into in-demand digital roles by 2034.
Employers and partners can apply at www.thecollectivex.org