{"id":32077,"date":"2021-03-09T14:48:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T14:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/?p=32077"},"modified":"2021-03-18T11:12:24","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T11:12:24","slug":"what-digital-skills-will-the-workforce-of-tomorrow-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/what-digital-skills-will-the-workforce-of-tomorrow-need\/","title":{"rendered":"What digital skills will the workforce of tomorrow need?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing this in an unusually quiet house. It\u2019s 9am on a Monday morning and normally there would be a cacophony of Zoom assemblies, Teams calls and frantic typing at this time. Today my kids have gone back to school.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This lockdown was a very different experience for my two primary school aged children. The DfE mandated that schools had to provide at least 3 hours of remote education a day, with Ofsted publishing <\/span>a guide to best practice.<\/span><\/a> Although many of us feared for weeks beforehand that another lockdown was inevitable, the speed with which schools closed forced teachers to move to online delivery overnight. This would be a major ask of any sector and digitising something as complex as the curriculum and the individual learning journeys of children was a huge challenge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I spoke to the headteacher at my kids\u2019 school I was struck by how he and his colleagues had, without realising it, become service designers. They, like many other schools, made huge efforts to embrace remote learning. Yet there have been significant issues in helping kids below the poverty line learn remotely. Ofcom estimate that up 1.8 million children do not have access to a laptop, desktop or tablet at home, whilst more than 880,000 children live in a household with <\/span>only a mobile internet connection.<\/span><\/a> Without the lifeline of technology their education has suffered, with a knock on impact on life chances, inequality and wellbeing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s taken a pandemic to reveal the human cost of the digital divide. And looking ahead, what worries me is the gulf between where we are in the UK currently with access to tech, and where we will need to be when my children\u2019s primary school classmates enter the workforce. PwC predict that by the mid-2030s one-third of all jobs <\/span>could face the risk of being automated<\/span><\/a>, whilst there could be as many as <\/span>50 million jobs in AI and robotics<\/span><\/a> by the start of that decade. However we are already facing a STEM skills gap in the UK, which is estimated to cost businesses <\/span>\u00a31.5 billion a year.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We need to learn the lessons that the lockdowns have taught about digital and education, and take action to meet this challenge. And the burden shouldn\u2019t just fall on schools. It\u2019s going to take a concerted effort from government, the education system, parents and the rest of the village required to raise a child to help get our kids ready for a digital future. Here are some things we need to consider.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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