Businesses and organisations right around the world are harnessing the latest technology in order to streamline the way they work and operate. But there’s a growing concern among employers that there just aren’t enough tech-savvy people out there to fill jobs.
That’s not something you’d expect, as it’s easy to assume that because most of us have smartphones, we’re all tech-savvy and capable of working in highly technological environments. However, it is indeed a real issue, a very worrying one, and with stats to prove it.
The statistics
According to Go.On UK, a charity that aims to promote digital skills, more than 12 million people and a million small businesses don’t have the skills to be able to prosper in the digital era.
It’s put together a map that shows areas of the UK where people are missing out on digital advancements. Wales is one of the areas most at risk, where around one third of the population don’t have sufficient digital skills, while London, Scotland and East Anglia are flourishing.
This isn’t just a major challenge in the UK, though. Research from the European Commission suggests that there’ll be a shortfall of 825,000 IT jobs in the whole of Europe by 2020. What’s worrying with this statistic is that there are nearly 24 million Europeans looking for work, yet businesses can’t find appropriate talent. A solution is clearly needed, and fast.
Focus on the solution, not how big the problem is
Mike Weston, CEO of data science consultancy Profusion, is frustrated that people are primarily focusing on how big the digital skills gap is instead of finding a solution. He believes that a closer collaboration between universities and tech companies could be just the answer.
He says: “We have been able to quickly hire a wide range of talented individuals thanks to our Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with The University of Essex. In short, a KTP aims to improve postgraduate skills and business research by creating a framework where a university can send a recent postgraduate to an organisation to undertake a specified project. The cost of the project is shared between the Government and the organisation.”
“Obviously, KTPs as they currently exist aren’t a solution for the whole tech industry. However, the principle is sound. Working closely with a university allows a tech company to define the skills they require, engage with students who could be drawn into areas such as financial services, and give students real world experience.”
Businesses need to offer effective training to employees
Nicola Mewse, group managing director at private recruitment firm Hales Group, believes that the long-term way forward is incorporating “relevant digital schooling” into the national curriculum. That said, she reckons that this is just “too long off to be able to fix the gap now”.
She suggests that at this current moment, it’s up to bosses and talent departments to fix the issue within their businesses. She says: “Senior business leaders and talent management departments need to shift their focus onto upskilling their existing workforce and new recruits rather than continually outsourcing. There are plentiful and varied online courses available, many of them free or very cost effective, that employees can enrol in to accelerate the level of digital skills within the business.”
More needs to be done from an early age
While a lot has been done in recent years to incorporate computer science and coding in schools, there’s still a long road ahead. Mark Armstrong, vice president at business applications development and management firm Progress, says more needs to be done in teaching modern-day computing language from the earliest age possible.
He says: “The likes of JavaScript, Python and HTML are the business languages of tomorrow and education should reflect that. There are positive signs in the shape of projects like the raspberry Pi, BBC micro:bit and Scratch, but these just form the base we need to build on. We should not forget that today’s factory line workers will be tomorrow’s coders.”
Armstrong also says there’s a major need for “a more strategically coordinated approach” that recognises and subsidises the courses that are vital to the country’s tech and digital industries over those that have very little impact on the economy.
It couldn’t be more prevalent that the lack of people with tech-savvy, digital skills poses a major threat to not just the British economy but that of the whole world. But as proven in this piece, there are a number of different things that can be, and are indeed being done to close the skills gap. In the long-term though, the solution is to ensure youngsters have the correct skills to be able to work in a highly technological workplace. And that will require cooperation between governments and businesses globally.
