Skills champion the Financial Skills Partnership (FSP) has launched its new Graduate Foundation College, which will give opportunities for up to 150 unemployed graduates to increase their employability for small to medium-sized advisory firms.

SMEs make up over 90% of the financial services sector and those participating in the scheme will offer work placements to successful candidates.

The college opens in September, with training providers including major sector employers such as insurers Aviva and Scottish Widows.

FSP chief executive Liz Field says the college “will give unemployed graduates access to rewarding careers in a sector which many young people have traditionally found difficult to enter, and open up the industry to recruitment from a wider and more diverse pool of keen and able candidates”.