The impact of COVID-19 and the acceleration of digital in 2020 has brought into focus the UK’s digital skills gap – according to a report from Microsoft UK. Although organisations are attempting to respond, recover and reimagine operations.
Up-skilling employees was said to be the top priority in the next six months - by 32 per cent of C-level executives surveyed. In addition, 80 per cent of leaders stated that it is their belief that investment in digital skills will be important to the country’s economic recovery. Employees who were also surveyed reportedly felt as though overcoming the digital skills gap is important for the future.
Of the respondents to the survey, 59 per cent said that developing their digital skills will be important to their employability after COVID-19 ends – with 70 per cent saying that they feel that access to digital skills is vital for economic and social inclusion.
Leaders identified the barriers to helping to remedy the skills gap as cost and lack of skills strategy - with the main barrier being cost, as stated by 37 per cent of respondents and secondly, skills strategy being named by 28 per cent.
Forty four per cent of UK leaders stated that they worry that the current lack of digital skills will impact negatively on next year’s success and 63 per cent of employees admit that they do not have the required digital skills needed in the new and emerging roles in their industry.
Simon Lambert - Chief Learning Officer at Microsoft UK - when speaking to HR magazine, said:
“Awareness is the first step to action. There is a sense of urgency to act now but what’s preventing them is, understandably, cost, the second obstacle is the lack of a skills investment strategy and the third is not knowing what skills initiatives to focus on.
It’s a new era of investment, collaboration, commitment from both employees and employers and the government alike. Especially as we continue to respond, recover and move on post-COVID.”
He added:
“Equipping all employees with strong digital skills is not just a commercial imperative but a societal one. A way to overcome barriers of inequality and regional imbalance while also fostering greater diversity, inclusion and economic growth.”
Peter Cheese - CEO of CIPD - was quoted in the report as saying:
“We under-invest in our people in the workplace and now need to strengthen alignment between education, employment and lifelong learning.”
To help address the need, Microsoft is launching a global skills initiative aimed at bringing more digital skills to 25 million people worldwide by the end of the year.
