Highlander FAQ

Highlander was setup in 1995 by Andy Gardiner our Managing Director. Andy teaches the majority of our courses to this day, and is an Adobe Certified Instructor and CompTIA Certified Technical Trainer.

Our current offices are in central York, one of the UK’s most beautiful cities. For roughly 20 years we also had offices in central London as well, however improvements in technology and the growth of live online learning meant this was no longer neccessary. 

After 25 years in the business we have worked with the majority of the bigger organisations in the UK from FTSE 100 companies through to public sector organisations. We do however also work with a wide range of SME clients and independent consultants who need to upskill. Throughout the site you will see a selection of some of the organisations we have worked with.

Our training courses can be attended live online, in person at our centre, or as a private course for example if you have a team to train. With some courses we also have the option to take a prerecorded version of the course which you can watch at your own pace.

Which option you choose will depend on factors such as your location, your budget and your timescale for learning. For example the instructor led courses tend to cost more than a prerecorded course, but includes full instructor interaction and after course support. As such it is a good option for companies with a training budget who need staff up to speed fairly quickly.

With the Live Online courses you log into a course from your own desk and attend online. The course is taught live by one of our UK based instructor, and the class sizes are capped at a maximum of 8 delegates. Throughout the course you can chat with the instructor and other delegates as you would in a classroom, and if you get stuck you can even share your screen with the instructor so they can give you advice.

The usual format involves students watching the instructor complete a task / explain a process, and then having a go themselves on their on machine, whilst asking any questions and clarifying anything that didn’t make sense.

It is possible to attend the courses in person at our York centre, however we have limited numbers for this, so it is worth booking in advance to ensure you get a place.

We offer closed courses for companies both at their offices, and live online. This is something we have done for many years and we have delivered private courses for organisations such as Burberry, Cath Kidston, Manchester City FC, Cisco, Companies House and the Scottish Parliament to name a few.

The courses start at 9.30am and typically finish between 4pm and 4.30pm. As our group sizes are small there is a lot of focused attention on individual delegates, and as a result a lot of new information to take in on any one day.

We keep our class sizes fairly small to ensure the quality of the training is high.  Our scheduled public class sizes are capped at 8 delegates, while closed courses can cater for groups of up to 10 delegates.

The requirements to attend online are pretty minimal. You will need a computer, a stable internet connection and a headset. A reliable wifi connection is fine, but we recommend a wired connection as they are normally more reliable. If you have a dual monitor setup this makes it simpler as you don’t have to keep changing between the software and the presentation screen, but is not a requirement for the attending course.

We will send you the login details prior to the course, together with a link to the test page, which can be used to check things like your sound setup. You will also need to have a copy of the software you are learning installed on your machine prior to the course.

We offer post course support for everybody attending our classes either online or in a classroom environment. This comes in the form of video tutorials, as well as instructor led support which is available through email.