{"id":16128,"date":"2016-06-24T11:47:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T10:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digileaders.com\/?p=16128"},"modified":"2019-03-22T11:45:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T11:45:26","slug":"%e2%80%8bdigital-skills-important-left-silo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/%e2%80%8bdigital-skills-important-left-silo\/","title":{"rendered":"\u200bDigital skills are too important to be left in a silo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s official. The UK is facing a digital skills crisis. This comes as no surprise to those of us who work in this area. But it has now been recognised by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee who last week published the report of their inquiry into the digital skills gap, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/business\/committees\/committees-a-z\/commons-select\/science-and-technology-committee\/news-parliament-2015\/digital-skills-crisis-report-published-16-17\/\"><u>Digital Skills Crisis<\/u><\/a>. As one of the witnesses, I welcome this report.<\/p>\n<p>Across the UK we have a technology skills shortage at all levels: from <a href=\"https:\/\/doteveryone.org.uk\/digital-skills\/digital-skills-framework\/\"><u>Basic Digital Skills<\/u><\/a> to more intermediate level skills, right up to the most advanced skills. Across the UK, 12.6 million adults &#8211; that\u2019s almost 1 in 4 &#8211; and 1.2m small and medium-sized businesses lack even the basic skills needed to send an email, apply for a job, or shop online. At the same time, business is telling us that 85% of technical positions are difficult to fill because of a lack of specialist skills.<\/p>\n<p>The Committee is right to focus on our education and apprenticeship pipeline because this is not just a generational issue. Our young \u201cdigital natives\u201d are not as savvy as we think. A 2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/cdn.news.o2.co.uk.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/The-Future-Digital-Skills-Needs-of-the-UK-Economy1.pdf\"><u>O2 report<\/u><\/a> stated that only 20% of the technology jobs required by 2017 could be filled by the current generation of 16-25 year olds. If four-fifths of our technology jobs are not suitable for our up-and-coming digital generation, the skills gap won\u2019t close any time soon.<\/p>\n<p>Without urgent action the nation\u2019s lack of digital skills will continue to hold back economic growth, productivity and social mobility. And yet we know that the return on investment to upskill our nation is compelling. To ensure our UK adult population is fit for the digital age would cost \u00a31.65 billion up to 2025. But over that period the net present value would be a staggering <a href=\"https:\/\/doteveryone-prod.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/The%20economic%20impact%20of%20digital%20skills%20and%20inclusion%20in%20the%20UK_Final_23_11_15.pdf\">\u00a314.3 billion<\/a> &#8211; a benefit of almost \u00a310 for every \u00a31 invested.<\/p>\n<p>If this huge benefit to the country is not convincing enough, what about the benefit to individuals?. Online households are on average<a href=\"http:\/\/lloydsbankinggroupdigital.com\/uk-consumer-index-2016\/\"> <u>\u00a3744<\/u> <\/a>per year better off; 72% of employers would not interview entry level candidates without IT skills; and once in work, people with good digital skills earn between 3% and 10% more than those without. Digital skills are essential for everyone at every level, but it is usually those that could benefit the most that are being left behind. That\u2019s not ok.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m delighted to see that many of our <a href=\"http:\/\/data.parliament.uk\/WrittenEvidence\/CommitteeEvidence.svc\/EvidenceDocument\/Science%20and%20Technology\/Digital%20Skills\/written\/26641.html\"><u>recommendations<\/u><\/a> to the Committee have been reflected in the report. But will they be acted on? The continuing delay in producing the long-awaited government digital strategy shows a lack of joined-up government leadership, something Ed Vaizey MP, Minister of State for the Digital Economy, admitted in his own evidence. Either government takes the lead in addressing the digital skills crisis or it picks an organisation or group of organisations to take the lead for it. A partnership approach across all sectors is of course the right way forward, but that requires political support and championing. I hope the Committee\u2019s report will catalyse just that.<\/p>\n<div class=\"tags\"><a href=\"https:\/\/doteveryone.org.uk\/blog\/2016\/06\/digital-skills-are-too-important-to-be-left-in-a-s\/#sthash.kxW7KiUw.dpuf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">This blog post first appeared on Doteveryone<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div class=\"tags\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s official. The UK is facing a digital skills crisis. This comes as no surprise to those of us who work in this area. But it has now been recognised by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee who last week published the report [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topic-digital-skills","topic-government"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u200bDigital skills are too important to be left in a silo | Digital Leaders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/\u200bdigital-skills-important-left-silo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u200bDigital skills are too important to be left in a silo | Digital Leaders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s official. The UK is facing a digital skills crisis. This comes as no surprise to those of us who work in this area. 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