A group of industry experts participated in a roundtable during the recent Skillsoft EMEA Perspective Conference 2015, discussing the key talent and skill building issues facing today’s businesses.
A group of industry experts participated in a roundtable during the recent Skillsoft EMEA Perspective Conference 2015, discussing the key talent and skill building issues facing today’s businesses.
Alexandra Hopkins, UK Head of Learning and Development, CGI, the leading independent information technology and business process services firms in the world, addressed the changing work environment and the impact technology was having on the skills shortage.
She said: “There will always be that gap and we will always continue to work to bridge that gap, but we are working in a rigid environment, in terms of employment law and the education sector here within the UK and how things are done.”
“We need to continue keeping agility at developing internally and continue developing new minds coming in and keep that balance and diversity, so trying to be forward thinking and strategic as possible and know what our clients are doing.”
Tom Millar, the Group Training Manager, of global cloud computing company Iomart, highlighted the shortage of skills in the IT sector due to the lack of graduates who were entering the industry.
He said: “Last year 65,000 students sat their A-levels, 403 took IT and that is huge and 30 per cent of those were girls and that’s massive. We all made a point that the science and engineering industries are less interesting to youngsters. Now in Scotland they are setting up skills academies for people who have academic qualifications in one degree and can’t get a job, so it pushes them though and retrain them into IT and employment and improving training.”
Engineering is a vital part of the UK economy and engineering employers have the potential to generate an additional £27 billion per year from 2022. This is equivalent to the cost of building 1,800 secondary schools or 110 new hospitals, according to the Engineering UK Report 2015,
However, the UK can only benefit economically from this if it meets the forecasted demand for 257,000 new vacancies in engineering enterprises in the same timescale. Driving recruitment is significant as for every new engineering role an additional two jobs are created in the economy.
The report also suggests that the industry is slowly shedding its image as a ‘grubby boys’ club’, but there’s still a long way to go.
Kevin Young, VP & General Manager EMEA, Skillsoft, said there was a disconnect with education and employment. “There are a significant number of organisations both in and outside of the IT sector, which have a requirement of agility and speed of change. For example Dyson is in need of 3,000 engineers in the future, but the total output of undergraduates in the next few years is 2,000.
“This would take most of the engineering graduates, so there is this is a disconnect in STEM skills and the demand of the sector not just IT. I think the challenge is how do we address that change and need for these skills. Officially we have the fastest growing economy, but we have the biggest skills gap and I don’t think organisations can fix this on their own.”
Liam Butler, VP Sales at SumTotal, said companies did not know how to measure their productivity. He said: “There are many definitions of talent. People are obsessed with catching and tracking data and remaining talent, they don’t want to go outside because of the agency costs. So I ask them, what are you doing with the data? Are you using it to make business decisions? They reply that they use it to track. The lack of skilled people was forcing companies to go into high schools and hiring them straight into employment.”
