Top UK advertising school to launch accessible careers programme for aspiring creatives
School of Communication Arts (SCA) will launch its Online Portfolio School - a bold new programme called Creativity Unlocked - in April 2025.
It comes as young people and working professionals increasingly seek alternatives to traditional degrees, citing cost and flexibility as their main reasons.
The World Economic Forum ranks creativity among the top skills needed for the future of work, while adland itself faces ongoing criticism for a lack of diversity, accessibility, and fresh thinking.
The programme will be delivered fully online and will be priced at just £2,750.
Creativity Unlocked promises to offer the same world-class training that has helped the school’s alumni secure jobs at top agencies like Wieden + Kennedy, Droga5, and VCCP.
Marc Lewis, Dean of SCA, said: “We built this course for the time-poor, cash-poor, and connections-poor.
“It’s for the brilliant minds who didn’t get the break, couldn’t afford to relocate, or didn’t know someone on the inside.
“We’re opening the door. Now it’s time to walk through it.”
Reopened in 2009 by Marc Lewis (an SCA alumnus himself), the School of Communication Arts has since become the most consistently awarded ad school in the UK — if not the world.
It commits to inclusion, and a curriculum built around live briefs and mentoring continues redefining what creative education can look like.
The new course offers weekly classes taught by leading creative professionals, monthly real-world briefs to build portfolios, 1:1 mentoring, and on-demand resources and idea generation tools.
It will run in cohorts throughout the year and is available globally, with finance options.
Creativity Unlocked offers a real, proven alternative to overpriced portfolio schools and theory-heavy MAs
Lewis adds: “This is the future of creative education.
“It’s inclusive, affordable, practical — and designed to actually get people hired.”
The next Creativity Unlocked cohort begins in April 2025.