The UK Skills Gap is growing
The UK skills gap
The UK skills gap is simply not about future talent and the capacity to meet today’s demand, it has an impact on the business bottom line, so filling these roles is a real issue. In the UK, the IT industry is a £151 billion industry with a growth rate between 4-5 % over the last year.
Mind the gap
Almost half of employers believe that the gap is growing, and have expressed a high level of concern over the skills shortage. With technology blending into most business sectors, many positions are suffering. Marketing and business development are feeling the pressure of the skills gap due to new focuses on digital strategies and implementation of automation to help with tasks.
Business needs a strategy
Business need to adopt a methodology on identifying and addressing the skills gap and build a strategy in place to address it. It is up to the tech sector, industry and employers to promote how a technology career is perceived and the educational background required. By also considering the different routes to qualification, the need right now is to educate the industry on the technologies that are impacting businesses today.
Back to The Future Talent
A McKinsey’s report suggests 6.6 million UK jobs will be displaced by 2030 and most of future tech jobs have not yet been created. There is an urgent need to ensure the next generation of IT talent have the skills to work with emerging technologies.
REVIEW
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
I have had the pleasure of attending panels where the future talent gap was raised.
OneTech #WeareOneTech
1. Don’t Blame The Pipeline: Ethnic minority people are here & applying for jobs and tech companies need to review and refresh their recruitment policies.
Talent.io #LetsTalkTech2018
1. 98% of software engineering population are male.
2. Our borders are closing to talent from Overseas, and our domestic pipeline is way too small.
CompTIA #Emeacon18
1. Only 25% of tech jobs are in coding, and there is so much opportunity across the business.
2. Every org has silos, millennials recognize this and want cross training.
3. Skills gap is not just about technology skills, the gap exists for soft skills too which are essential for working across teams.
ChangeCatalyst #TechInclusion
1. It’s time to have those awkward conversations. That’s where the change begins.
2. We need to be “be curious, be open-minded and drive change” for technology to include everyone.
3. Simple data, simple message. We need to think if these statistics will lead to building healthy and safe technology for all.
4. Call to tech ecosystem CEOs to objectively examine their organisations for inequalities & hidden barriers that may be hindering diverse individuals.
LBAcademy is a UK Business Growth Hub that provides digital skill and talent training to Tech & Creative Startups for high growth.