Team-focused strategy strengthens Leidos UK's technical capabilities
When Steven Stewart left secondary school in 1986, he knew one thing—he wanted to be a programmer. It was the era of the personal computing revolution, and not yet ready for university, he opted for an on-the-job training scheme (YTS) where he obtained a variety of skills. This eventually helped him secure a job with a small, two-person manufacturing company, where he found himself doing everything from driving the delivery van and running marketing stalls to writing the customer information database
“That first job gave me experience with a broad range of skills with a wide range of people,” he says. “The ability to understand all the different aspects of a business gave me a fantastic basis for the rest of my career because it gave me just enough knowledge to have conversations with different people across different skill sets.”
While the company's small size offered Steven valuable insight into how a business operates, it was limited in the opportunities and training it could provide. So, Steven headed to university to study computer information systems, which eventually led him to Leidos. Over the next 25 years he advanced his career from entry-level software developer to his current role as head of capabilities and communities, where he’s tasked with building up the technical skills of Leidos UK workforce to meet developing market needs.
One of our key strengths is that the collaborative spirit of the people that work with us also makes it feel like a smaller company. That means you can both build close relationships within your team, while still having access to a range of industry areas and job roles without ever having to move to a new company.
Steven Stewart
Capabilities and Communities Lead, Leidos UK
Still, with around 48,000 employees across 400 different locations, Steven realised that ensuring everyone has equal access to opportunities for advancement can’t just be left up to local employee networks or the proactiveness of individual line managers.
So, in 2023, he began developing a skills-development platform to enable Leidos UK’s technical employees to better understand how they stand in their current role, allowing them to assess their current strengths against defined profiles, identify any skills gaps and training opportunities, and anticipate where their career could take them.
“The aim was to create something that’s a bit more individual, both in terms of reflecting the particular needs of our UK customers but also the multitude of different technical roles and the variety of different skills that people may have even within the same role,” Steven explains.
The platform enables employees to identify upskilling suggestions which can be met through recommended courses from Leidos UK's TechX academy, which provides both foundational and focused skills training pathways across a range of core engineering disciplines. To date 640 Leidos employees have engaged with TechX academy, 291 of whom have gone on to complete an entire pathway and 37 of whom have now received external accreditations as a result.
Beyond recording and recommending training, Steven also highlighted the need for the Leidos upskilling programme to consider the importance of putting skills into practice through on-the-job experience.
“You can undertake training, but if you don't have the opportunity to implement it practically, then knowledge seeps out of you,” he notes. “So, we’re making sure that our upskilling programmes are not only ahead of demand but also well timed so that there’s opportunity to use a new skill while it’s still fresh.”
We’re making sure that our upskilling programmes are not only ahead of demand but also well timed so that there’s opportunity to use a new skill while it’s still fresh.
Steven Stewart
Capabilities and Communities Lead, Leidos UK
That future-looking approach makes sure Leidos is poised to anticipate customers’ projected needs but, for Steven, the benefits of forward-thinking are as important for individual employees’ development as they are for company-level strategy.
“I was fortunate enough to have several mentors who’ve guided me throughout my career,” Steven shares. “That made me appreciate how important it is to have someone who can explain to you that developing this skill is not only going to be valuable for the company but also for you in your future career.”
The success of allowing technical employees in the UK to perform detailed skills assessments against defined job profiles has led to the programme’s integration into the company's enterprise HR and talent management platform for the entire global corporation.
“By providing a standard starting point we can take away a bit of the ambiguity about where you should be, what you should be working towards, and the kind of opportunities and support that is available to you,” Stewart says. “Ultimately we’re aiming to create a single source of truth for both the individual and the company to ensure that everyone can work to the same standard.”
