Digital Skills Gap

• 47% of UK employers think their organisation would be more productive if the level of digital skills was higher;
• However, businesses are only investing an average of £109 annually per employee on digital skills training, leaving them at risk of falling behind more digitally advanced competitors;
• 34% of UK employers admitted they find it difficult to implement the right training to digitally up-skill their workforce;
• 40% of employers say their organisation relies on younger employees and graduates for the digital skills they require, bypassing the need to train up mid-level employees;

British businesses are not doing enough to boost employees’ digital competence, according to new research commissioned by Barclays.^[1] While almost half (47%) of all businesses believe better digital skills would lead to a more productive workforce, investment in digital upskilling remains low at only £109 per employee among medium and large businesses.^[2]

Digital Skills

The survey of UK employees and employers found that businesses have struggled to digitally upskill the workforce. 34% of employers find it difficult to implement the right training to address the current lack of digital skills. Instead, two-fifths (40%) of businesses opt to hire younger, more digitally savvy employees to address the digital skills gap. 45% of organisations admit to believe that older employees are often slower to pick up digital skills. 33% of employers consider only a small proportion of their employees as having the digital education they would expect of them given their role.

27% of employers surveyed consider knowledge of data and device protection a priority to look for when hiring new employees. Exposing heightened concerns amongst British businesses around cyber and information security. Other digital skills that are a high priority for organisations are as follows:

• Ability to analyse large data sets (23%)
• Use social media effectively (21%)
• Use cloud-based tools and services for collaboration and storage (20%)
• Basic design skills (19%)
• Basic knowledge of building a website (16%)
• Coding skills (15%)
• Ability to produce video content (10%)

However, in spite of this mounting concern, businesses are not making the necessary investments in digital training. Planning on increasing investment in digital education by only 19% over the next five years.^[3]

The squeezed middle

The deficit in digital skills is most apparent in medium-sized organisations. 45% of all employers think only a small proportion of fellow workers in their organisation have the digital literacy they would expect of them for their role. This is significantly higher than the average (33%).^[4]

However, these businesses are also the most aware of the need to invest in digital education. 63% of medium-sized employers believe their organisation would be more productive if the level of digital skills was higher. 35% claim that digital skills are one of the top attributes they look for in a new recruit. This percentage is higher than any other sized business.

Employer concerns are echoed by employees

Employees at medium-sized firms are the most concerned of any size of business about reduced productivity through lack of digital education (38%), being overlooked for promotion (42%), being shown up by younger generation (37%), and redundancy (40%).

The fear of being replaced by a younger, digitally savvy employee is reflected by the fact that almost two thirds (59%) of medium-sized business owners say they rely on hiring younger employees and graduates to address the lack of digital skills, a figure significantly greater than the average (40%).

Despite feeling concerned at a lack of digital skills, a significant proportion of employees are still not taking steps to upskill themselves. Almost half (47%) of all employees asked have never taken steps to boost their digital capabilities. while out of those that have only 16% have done so in the last year.

Of those that have harnessed the opportunity to boost their digital skills 63% of employees in medium sized businesses say it has had a positive impact on their career progression and an overwhelming 68% said it has improved their ability to do their job, showing there is much to gain on both an individual and business level from investing in digital literacy.
Credit: onrec.com