“Mastering 3D graphics or real-time 3D skills can lead to strong entry-level opportunities and provide a boost to early-career professionals.”
Video courtesy of INFINITY27
Our Purpose
PROTOGÉ’s purpose is to bridge the skills gap in the UK’s immersive, games and real-time 3D industries.
We seek to provide businesses access to the next generation of talent which they will need to solve complex creative digital problems in order to realise their companies creative vision and commercial goals in today and tomorrow’s highly competitive global marketplace.
PROTOGÉ innovates in this space by working with leading-edge partners to provide work-based training opportunities that develop the skills, behaviours and competencies to meet this demand.
Our Aims
BRIDGE
BRIDGE the skills gap in the immersive sector by…
CREATE
…CREATING opportunities for work-based training…
WORK
…WORKING on real, live, next-gen client projects.
What is PROTOGÉ?
Our proven model focuses on taking an aspiring designer, artist or programmer and giving them the skills and experience they need as part of a next-gen workforce.
Therefore, to ensure long-term success our PROTOGÉs experience a real workplace environment where next-gen skills are practised towards mastery. In addition, PROTOGÉs utilise cutting-edge immersive technologies and work-based training alongside tailored professional mentorship.
As a result, our PROTOGÉs develop real-time interactive 3D content using industry standards for use in a range of applications.
Why do we need PROTOGÉ?
Technology continues to shape our world at an accelerated pace. Moreover, jobs within the digital economy are at the forefront of this change as they’re fundamentally and inseparably tied to that pace of innovation.
However, the way we train for these jobs is still rooted in the two-century-old Prussian approach and brings with it a host of issues that aren’t compatible with twenty-first century realities.
To deliver a workforce capable of meeting the needs of tomorrow , we argue that a radical new approach is needed in the way we train the next-generation workforce. This is why we saw the need to develop PROTOGÉ.
Who is PROTOGÉ for?
PROTOGÉ is for those pursuing a career in real-time interactive 3D within the games and immersive industries. These high-tech jobs demand a high level of both creative and technical skills, as well as personal and professional behaviors and competencies that are valued across companies worldwide.
Furthermore, with the development of real-time 3D engines such as Unreal Engine, these highly sought-after skills are now increasing in demand within the automotive, architectural, entertainment, media, training and simulation industries. From producing real-time interactive 3D product visualisations for design and marketing purposes, or for creating photo-realistic scenes as backdrops in virtual production stages and architectural visualisations.
Realtime interactive 3D skills are the key to anyone looking to develop a tech career in the coming decade.
Our Values
BEHAVIOUR
Develop honesty, courage and soft-skills
COMPETENCY
Professionalism in pursuit of skills mastery
MINDSET
Work smarter with determined focus and vision
How does PROTOGÉ help academia and industry?
Academia
We're invested in delivering impact through programs that deliver the right skills and approaches which benefit the industry.
We value academic dialogue and are interested in research projects that wish to investigate how our approach compares to other types of intervention and how it can be improved. We are willing to work with the right academic partners who value a currency of knowledge and who share our goal to make more employable people more usefully employable. Through knowledge sharing, co-creation and our agile approach we seek to rapidly develop and exploit innovative talent pipelines from within the UK.
Our academic partners have the added benefit of being the first to be offered our high-quality placements for their students and graduates.
Industry
With the fast pace of these industries we’re adaptive and responsive to the needs of organisations from large game studios to immersive SME’s. Thanks to convergence on the game engine as a central tool for content authorship across these industries, it has been possible to work with businesses to etch out a set of core competencies and skills, aligned with future work roles.
This approach makes it possible for us to act as a quality assurance checkpoint, meaning we can pass on benefits such as reduce recruitment and training costs in the short-term, as well as de-risking future employment risks and increasing profit in the long-term. This is a result of us enabling industry to put more effective people into organisations and onto projects sooner and for longer, without the teething pains of developing that talent up to standard in-house.
See what our PARTNERS think…
Industry needs PROTOGÉ
Since 2019 Burning Glass Technologies has partnered with Epic Games to understand the demand for real-time 3D skills in the worldwide labour market. They release reports which include some key findings:
Demand for cutting-edge real-time 3D skills is growing quickly. Demand for 3D graphics overall has grown 42% faster than the market overall. Demand for real-time 3D skills, which are at the technological frontier of 3D graphics, has grown 601% faster than the market overall and now accounts for 10% of all openings calling for 3D graphics, up from 4% in 2013.
Real-time 3D skills are undersupplied, and that is unlikely to change any time soon. Demand for deal-time 3D skills is growing rapidly, take longer than average to fill, and is associated with a large salary premium. These jobs pay 57% above the average advertised salary and 18% above the average advertised salary for jobs requesting 3D graphics skills in general.
Demand for some 3D graphics skills is becoming universal across all geographies studied, while for others it remains geographically fragmented. Countries like the UK and Germany are the dominant force, universally showing the highest demand for 3D graphics and real-time 3D skills in a variety of occupations and industries.
Where does PROTOGÉ operate?
Currently we operate in the North-East of England, within our Tyne & Wear (PROTO, Gateshead) and Tees Valley (Victoria Building, Teesside University) remit.
We are keen to pursue strategic partnerships with those who share common values and goals. PROTOGÉ is actively seeking more key partners who will enable us to grow and scale to service the rapidly growing talent demand across the UK.
If you feel we are a good match then please contact us to see how we can help each other make an impact.