Great experience and my assessor Gemma was excellent turning my submissions around so quickly and giving really valuable feedback. Like many others the only thing preventing it from being 5*... See more
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I really enjoyed this course and found it very helpful . The lessons were clear , well - organized and easy to follow. The support from tutors was excellent - they were always ready to help and I appr... See more
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The course was packed with information. It made me reflect and think, analyse and question. The learning slides were a good mixture of reading and videos, games and tasks that kept my attention throug... See more
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The course was very informative indeed. I learned a great deal. The links to relevant charities were helpful in understanding what support is available for children experiencing mental health cond... See more
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Company details
- Distance Learning Center
- Adult Education School
- Career and Education Provider
- Education Center
- Educational Institution
Written by the company
The Skills Network is one of the most successful providers of online learning solutions in the UK. Distance learning supports educators, employers and individuals around to develop new skills and knowledge, and we have a wide range of free, fully-funded courses, CPDs, Skills Bootcamps, Apprenticeships, professional qualifications and more.
Contact info
06-16 Benedict Drive, Abbey Court, YO8 8RY, Selby, United Kingdom
- 01757 210022
- enquiries@theskillsnetwork.com
- theskillsnetwork.com
3.8
Great
2K reviews
Replied to 91% of negative reviews
Typically replies within 2 weeks
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Excellent course and I also had…
Excellent course and I also had excellent tutoring from both of them
28 February 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for the great feedback!
We would love to hear more about your learning experience with us and potentially feature you on our social media and marketing activity! Please email marketing@theskillsnetwork.com if interested and we'll send you some more info. 🙂
I throughly enjoyed the course with…
I throughly enjoyed the course with Skills Network, this was my 2nd remote learning course but 1st with skills network, they give you plenty of time to complete all requirements to do the course, and you can ask for time extension if your struggling or behind, they also gave me excellent tutor feedback which included tips and advice as to where to look on other websites to help me get more information on the course levels to help me improve in my field. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 star customer support and service. Would highly recommend them to anyone interested in remote learning to achieve their goals.
28 February 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you so much for your thoughtful review! We're thrilled to hear that you thoroughly enjoyed your course experience with Skills Network. It’s great to know that the flexibility of our program and the support from our tutors helped you stay on track and enhance your learning. We’re especially glad the feedback and additional resources were useful in helping you grow in your field. Your recommendation means a lot to us, wishing you continued success!
Cowboy outfit.
Dreadful people. Nothing but bully's!! Unfortunately for them they did not bank on me and I will take legal action against them. Their courses are missold and shoddy. Cowboy outfit. Avoid at all costs.
29 April 2025
Unprompted review
I’d give zero if I could
I’d give zero if I could .
Never even done the course with you guys. Being hounded for £100 and threatening me with court and all? Ridiculous.
How am I supposed to pay when nobody will reply to me ? Can’t even send a email cause it just gets sent back saying not delivered!
27 September 2024
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback. We're genuinely sorry to hear you're unhappy and we’d like to clarify a few key points about the funding and fees.
Our courses can be free (either fully or part-funded) depending on each learner’s eligibility, including financial circumstances and location. This is clearly explained during the enrolment process, and we ask all learners to confirm that they understand there may be a £100 withdrawal fee if the course is not completed or if eligibility criteria are not met.
We understand it’s frustrating to receive an unexpected charge, but this fee covers part of the significant costs already incurred in setting up and supporting your learning — especially where we are unable to recover government or local authority funding due to non-completion.
We’re committed to helping all learners succeed and always encourage anyone unsure about their eligibility or ability to commit to reach out before enrolling. If you’d like to discuss your individual case further, we’d be happy to help — please contact our support team directly so we can review your situation in more detail.
Kind regards,
The Skills Network Team
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for the great feedback!
We would love to hear more about your learning experience with us and potentially feature you on our social media and marketing activity! Please email marketing@theskillsnetwork.com if interested and we'll send you some more info. 🙂
Support staff are unhelpful
Support staff are unhelpful - if you arent fully unemployed don’t take the course. They do not except extensions if you need it and will have to pay.
9 April 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Hello, I'm sorry to hear you are unhappy with your course. We value your feedback and are always looking for ways to improve to ensure the best possible experience for all our learners.
If you could please send your feedback along with your contact details and the course you studied via email to complaints@theskillsnetwork.com we would like to look into this and also share your feedback with our Product Development team.
Thank you
Scam scam scam!
Recieved this email from them today:
"Thanks for choosing to study a course with us! Unfortunately, we haven't been able to secure funding for you, so we will stop sending you communications about our funded courses. Don't want to wait? No problem, you can shop for your chosen course online."
This was after I went through a very intrusive application process which involved sending them my birth certificate, place of employment and my address. I was also made to complete time consuming Maths and English assessments, only for them to turn round and say the course can't be funded! If my identity gets stolen or ends up in the wrong hands, I will be calling the police as these type of decieving practises are not acceptable! If you want to do a course, go to a reputable college and secure funding through them instead. You'd be eligible for funding if you earn under the threshold. They offer distance learning so that you can do the courses online. Don't make the mistake of being scammed like I was.
16 April 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for sharing your experience. We're very sorry to hear how frustrating the process felt and completely understand your concerns.
Our application process is in place to meet the eligibility requirements set by our funding partners, which does include identity verification and initial assessments. We apologise if this wasn’t made clearer at the start.
Please be assured that your personal information is handled securely and in full compliance with GDPR. That said, we take concerns like yours seriously and would like the chance to investigate further. If you're happy to share your details and the course you applied for, please email us at complaints@theskillsnetwork.com so we can look into this for you.
Thank you again for your feedback, it helps us improve.
I'm currently studying with them
I'm currently studying with them. I was told there was no funding available at first which was frustrating as they offer the courses first.
I'm now trying to get through this with the tight timescales which is making me really anxious. My first assignment didn't get marked and back to me for 4 days and I didn't want to start the next until I knew I was writing in the right format etc. So now I'm already behind for the next deadline. The work is intense, word counts of 100, 200 even 400 for some answers, 15 questions in a unit and 2 weeks if that to do it. I've done a degree and also other level 2 courses and I have not been under time pressure like this. We aren't all teenagers with lots of time spare to study. It's often a case of fitting it in when the kids go to bed. Please please review the timescales and word counts to be inline with other free level 2 courses with other providers.
15 April 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for your honest feedback. We're sorry to hear about the initial funding confusion and the stress caused by tight deadlines and delayed feedback. Your concerns about word counts and timescales have been noted and will be shared with the team for review. Thank you again for your commitment and for raising these important points.
Had a great experience with the Skills…
Had a great experience with the Skills Network :)
The learning was excellent and very helpful. The team were so great and so helpful to me, always responsive and detailed. I thoroughly recommend them and am so happy with my new certification. This was my first step to my new career going after my passion and it was a nice easy first stepping stone so thank you very much!
12 December 2024
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you so much for your kind words! 😊 We're absolutely thrilled to hear that you had a great experience with The Skills Network. It's great to know that the learning was helpful and that our team could support you along the way-we’re always here to help! Congratulations on earning your certification.
Wishing you all the best as you continue moving forward, we’re cheering you on every step of the way!
I studied the Level 2 Prevent & British…
I studied the Level 2 Prevent & British Values.
The content was good and engaging using different learning methods and the portal is user friendly.
I would recommend the course, it's very informative and contains plenty of links and suggestions for further reading. My tutor was knowledgeable on the subject and gave good feedback. The downside is the deadlines are too short, the course is intensive and requires a lot of reading and independent studying and you have to write everything in your own words, each answer has to be very detailed so be mindful of the time commitments. You can ask for extensions but you are always playing catch up for the next deadline. I would consider doing another course if it wasn't for the fact that 5 months after I completed the course they still haven't moderated my work and presented me with a certificate and I am getting nowhere chasing it up.
8 April 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for your feedback and for taking the time to share your experience studying the Level 2 Prevent & British Values course. We're really pleased to hear that you found the content engaging, the learning methods effective, and the portal user-friendly. It's great to know the tutor support and additional reading resources added value to your learning. We appreciate your honesty regarding the challenges with deadlines and workload. and we’ll continue working to make the experience more manageable for learners. We're also sorry to hear about the delay in receiving your certificate—this is certainly not the experience we aim to provide, and we understand how frustrating that must be. If you'd like an update on the status of your certificate or would like to speak to someone, you can contact our Awards Team at awards@theskillsnetwork.com.
Bullying and Intimidating
My experience of working for this company was awful, I found them toxic to work for. I made whistleblowing complaints about their breaches of GDPR by sharing personal data of students outside of secure channels to tutor personal email addresses. Following whistleblowing and leaving the company, I feel they have attempted to bully, threaten, intimidate and coerce me into signing a document which would void my legal rights to pursue the maters further. They wrongly accused me of holding onto and failing to delete personal data and threatened me with solicitors. I found this company absolutely awful to work with.
31 March 2025
Unprompted review
Not very transparent company
Not very transparent company and using a government's fonts/title to deceive people who just want to better themselves. Personal details and IDs now in their possession. Double check and make sure the URL only has 'freecoursesinEngland' and has a lot more of gov.uk information. All my application is not viewable/unsaved and hopefully that's a good thing if their system/website is not dependable.
28 March 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for sharing your feedback. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and fully understand your concerns. We strive to provide a seamless and trustworthy service, and we regret that this wasn’t the case for you.
The application process is necessary to verify eligibility for funding and ensure applicants receive the proper support. We apologise if this was not clearly communicated.
Please be assured that we take the protection of your personal information seriously, and we are committed to a transparent and secure process. To help us resolve this issue, could you please send your contact details and the course you applied for to complaints@theskillsnetwork.com?
Thank you again for your feedback. We’re committed to improving your experience with us.
Absolutely scam
Absolutely scam, after filling all my personal info and waiting for a month contacted them to find out no course for me funded. Alternatively I should look for some course by myself or buy from them directly, I was advised from member of staff. I feel I need to report this because looks like they stealing identities. Absolutely horrible behaviour towards trusting people.
19 March 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for sharing your feedback. We're sorry to hear about your experience and fully understand your concerns. We strive to provide a seamless and trustworthy service, and we deeply regret that you felt this wasn’t the case.
The application process is necessary to verify eligibility for funding from our partners and to ensure that applicants receive the proper support. We apologise if this was not clearly communicated.
Please be assured that we take the protection of your personal information very seriously, and we are committed to a transparent and secure process. We would like to resolve this issue for you. Could you please send us your contact details and the course you applied for to complaints@theskillsnetwork.com? This will help us look into your situation more closely.
We truly appreciate your feedback and will work hard to improve your experience with us. Thank you again for reaching out.
Don't waste your time
Lengthy and in depth application process where they take all of your personal details, ID documents and so on only to tell you "oops looks like there's no funding in your area, soz". If my identity gets stolen I'll know who did it. Seems like a scam. Stupid that I fell for it.
11 March 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We understand your frustration with the application process and we apologise for any inconvenience you’ve experienced. While our application may seem lengthy, the personal details and documents requested are necessary to work with our funding partners and ensure you receive the support you need.
We take your concerns seriously, and we would like to address them directly. If you could please share your feedback, along with your contact details and the course you applied for, via email to complaints@theskillsnetwork.com, we'd be happy to look into this further.
We assure you that we are not a scam, and we are committed to providing a transparent and secure process for all applicants. Thank you again for your feedback.
The Skills Network staff were always…
The Skills Network staff were always very encouraging and supportive and if I had any queries they were always super quick to respond to them.
26 February 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you so much for your kind words! We're thrilled to hear that you felt supported throughout your course. Our team is always here to help, and we appreciate you taking the time to share your positive experience!
Fake
Fake. Think they get money from government considering you’re a student but actually you’re NOT. This happened to me in the past two years where two diferent websites are challenging you and in between them (the skills network and Equal log in) ,,why? And I cannot finish any course as always when trying to log in into my account the password or username it is not recognized ….quite weird. But sure they get the money and students are just scammed
25 February 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
We’re sorry to hear about your frustrations and want to clarify that we are not fake. We understand your concerns and assure you that we are a legitimate organisation committed to helping our learners succeed.
If you're having trouble logging in, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team for assistance. You can contact us at 01757 600915 (recommended) or email learner.support@theskillsnetwork.com, and we will do our best to help you resolve the issue.
We truly appreciate your feedback and hope we can assist you in getting back on track with your course.
Great content but tight schedule.
I studied the Level 2 course "Understanding Environmental Sustainability."
The content was good but the pressure to complete it in a short time frame made it quite tricky.
Once the funding has been approved you hit the ground running with a really tight schedule. I had to ask for extensions for most sections, which didn't make me feel great.
I would recommend the course, it's very informative and contains plenty of links and suggestions for further reading. But, ensure you have enough spare time after work to complete it.
I think this course would work well within the school curriculum, this is an area everyone needs to have a good understanding of.
30 September 2024
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you so much for sharing your feedback and for recommending the course! We’re glad to hear you found the content informative and useful, especially with the additional reading resources provided. We understand that the time frame can feel tight, and we’re sorry to hear that you had to ask for extensions, it’s something we’ll take into consideration when reviewing course schedules. We appreciate your suggestion about incorporating the course into the school curriculum, as we agree that environmental sustainability is a crucial topic for everyone to understand. Thanks again for your insights, and we hope you found the knowledge gained to be valuable!
Enjoyed the course, would recommend.
Enjoyed the course. The content was clear, interesting and useful, and it's great to have another qualification under my belt. The timescales for assignments were quite aggressive and I didn't really have any idea of the time commitment needed before starting so it would be great if that was clearer in the initial information. However I did take advantage of the ease of getting an extension for one assignment which helped with the course load. I would recommend doing this and will look at further courses in the future for myself.
22 November 2024
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for taking the time to leave a thoughtful review. We're thrilled to hear that you enjoyed the course content and that you found it both clear and useful. Congratulations on earning another qualification!
We also appreciate your feedback on the assignment timescales and understand how important it is to have a clear idea of the time commitment upfront. We’ll make sure to share your feedback with our team to improve the information provided at the start of the course. We’re glad the extension option helped you manage your workload. Thank you again for your review!
Discovering Mental Health
This is the second course that I've started with the Skills Network and overall I've been very impressed.
The content is good but the opportunities to develop knowledge from other sources gives a chance to expand on it.
With this course the timescales for submission of the assessments were far too short. To complete the first couple within a week is impossible if you want to give it your full attention.
It is easy to get an extension but the system doesn't take into account that you're already behind so you then have to ask for further time to be added.
The support staff are extremely helpful though and this is a minor niggle. The issue does need addressing though as it could put students off by adding a level of unnecessary stress.
Other than that I've enjoyed studying with them and learned a lot that is useful to my work role and life in general.
20 February 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for sharing your feedback.
We’re glad to hear you’ve found the course content valuable and that you’ve enjoyed expanding your knowledge. We also appreciate your comments regarding the assessment timescales. We understand the importance of manageable deadlines and will share your feedback with the relevant teams to review and improve this aspect of the course. We're committed to continuously improving and providing the best possible learning experience, and your insights help us do that. Thank you again, and we wish you continued success in your studies!
Safeguarding, Prevent and British Values
I completed the Safeguarding, Prevent, and British Values Level 2 course. While this course contains some unsettling information and learning, it is well worth the effort. I would highly recommend anyone take it. However, please go into this course with open eyes, as it can sometimes be overwhelming. If it's needed, they also have a team you can talk to if you feel distressed about the information and learning materials.
I now can't wait to further my education with the Skills Network and start working on mental health and counselling courses.
14 December 2024
Unprompted review
Reply from The Skills Network
Thank you for the great feedback!
We would love to hear more about your learning experience with us and potentially feature you in our marketing activity! Please email marketing@theskillsnetwork.com if interested and we'll send you some more information.
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