About Us

What is the Mining Industry Skills Centre?

The Mining Industry Skills Centre works with the resources industry to identify and solve the challenges associated with training a modern workforce. The Skills Centre develops solutions to help industry plan and develop their workforce, and provides opportunities for organisations and individuals to improve Safety and productivity on-site by implementing high quality training.

To do this, the Skills Centre partners with and supports sites, contractors, training organisations and corporate groups across our industry, while engaging with other key stakeholders such as government, the inspectorate, unions and other industry peak bodies

As an organisation that receives no government funding for its operation, the Skills Centre survives entirely on income generated by sales of its products and services. The Skills Centre is a not-for-profit organisation which means any profits made from these sales are not paid out to shareholders but are re-invested into the industry in a range of ways, including:

• Subsidising the cost of products and services
• Coordinating networks, focus groups and taskforces
• Undertaking research projects
• Producing training frameworks, reports, strategies and papers
• Providing advice and support services

Four key business pillars support this purpose

Areas of operation

The Skills Centre’s work is centred around Six Core Areas of Operation which guide and drive the development of products and projects:

Within each of these Six Core Areas, the Skills Centre supports a range of products and projects which feed into the work life-cycle – from attracting workers to the industry, inducting and training them, through to progressing careers and sustaining capacity and productivity.

Products and Projects

The Skills Centre aims to create a sustainable and profitable business that works to support the industry.  In doing this we fulfil our purpose to assure the timely development of a sustainable, skilled workforce aligned to industry requirements.  

Why is there a need for the Mining Industry Skills Centre?

The resources industry has been in sustained growth since 2002 with predictions that it will continue to peak until 2015.

With increased production needs, an aging workforce and a changing dynamic of skills required, a severe skills shortage exists industry wide.  This has significant implications on the national economy and requires a strategic solution.

Initially established with the intention of being a Queensland focussed organisation, it was quickly realised that the training needs of the national and international resources community were shared.

Further, by connecting these organisations by networks, governance structures and relationships, the costs of training could be reduced while maximising the outcomes.  As a result, the resources industry on the whole benefits.  This is the role of the Mining Industry Skills Centre.

Vision for the future

The Mining Industry Skills Centre will continue to work with Government and the resources industry to develop products and services to  manage the skills shortage as effectively as possible.

In addition, the Mining Industry Skills Centre has the objective of being financially sustainable.  This will be achieved by commercialising a number of products and making them available to the resources industry.  All profits will then be reinvested back into the industry into educational initiatives such as the Mineral and Energy Academy.