Growth and the digital skills gap

Nikolaz Foucaud at Coursera argues that the UK still has much to do in terms of skills development if it is to meet its tech superpower ambitions

 

Significant efforts have been made over the last few years to establish the UK as a ‘tech superpower’. This responsibility now lies with the new Labour government, who have articulated a long-term vision to support growth through intensified collaboration with industry, keeping the UK at the forefront of global innovation.

 

With a technology sector worth $1 trillion, the country already has a well-established platform from which it can assert technological leadership. However, for the UK to truly consolidate itself as a tech and innovation leader, closing existing skills gaps and nurturing technological literacy will be imperative. 

 

However, recent skills data shows that there is still some way to go before the UK’s skills capacity matches its ambitions. Our Global Skills Report 2024, combining proprietary platform data with third-party indicators and per capita indexes to create a worldwide skills ranking, places the UK 45th globally for technology and business skill proficiency.

 

In order to improve the UK’s relative position, which places it significantly behind its European peers, and make it a true ‘tech superpower’, our digital skills gap must urgently be addressed.

 

AI literacy: a $4 trillion opportunity

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, generative AI has dominated public consciousness, and created new and exciting opportunities for business innovation. With companies and countries competing to capture an innovation windfall that could amount to as much as $4.4 trillion, the UK needs to ensure that it’s not left behind when it comes to equipping the nation with the skills needed to reap the benefits. 

 

Implementing AI is an urgent priority for enterprises, as a productivity-enhancer, decision-driver, and thought-partner. In this context, it is unsurprising that our data reveals rapid growth in GenAI course enrolments – a 1,060% year-on-year increase - as the world’s learners engage in a rapid rush towards AI literacy.

 

Yet while the UK has seen a 961% increase in AI upskilling in the past year, this figure is lower than the global average, and that of the United States (1,058%). As effective deployment of AI becomes increasingly prevalent across UK businesses - with a third expected to use it by 2024 according to the DCMS - outskilling our peers needs to be made a top priority for business leaders. 

 

To incentivise and support this much-needed intensification of skills development, policy and investment from the new government must be key priorities. There are a number of propitious potential levers on which they can pull, including carefully-targeted subsidies, grants and tax incentives, designed to induce increased private sector skills development, which has badly stagnated over the past decade.

 

The proposal for a ‘Growth and Skills Levy’ is a move in the right direction, offering employers more flexibility to choose the upskilling pathways that are right for their employees. Apprenticeships will remain a crucial contributor to a more skilled nation, but are no longer the only viable option for enterprises wishing to retrain and upskill their workforces. 

 

Tackling skilling obstacles

The extent to which upskilling must be made a central priority of any British growth strategy cannot be overstated. The most recent edition of the Coursera Global Skills Report sees the UK languishing in unfavourable positions in each of the report’s three constituent skill domains: 32nd for Data Science, 46th for Technology, and 52nd for Business skills. Nine of the ten highest-ranked nations this year are European peers, with Switzerland leading the world.

 

To improve the UK’s competitiveness, and prevent European counterparts from gaining an unassailable human capital advantage, identifying and strategizing to close skills gaps is imperative. HR leaders can increasingly deploy learning technology to map their organisation’s skills landscape, identify problem areas, consult with industry experts, review market research, and analyse competitor strategies to improve their own.

 

In addition, we should be fostering stronger public-private partnership to progress a culture of lifelong learning, particularly around digital skills, in line with Labour strategy to operate “in partnership with businesses and workers to grasp the opportunities of new technologies’’.

 

Placing more focus on flexible, accessible learning pathways must be a central component of this strategy. Greater emphasis on part-time, evening, and online courses will enable working professionals to update their skills at their own pace to meet the evolving demands of the digital economy.

 

Leaders also have a responsibility to create an environment in which learning is prioritised and valued. They can do this by fostering a culture of continuous learning, shifting towards a skills-first learning paradigm - one in which skills, rather than credentials, are the valued currency - and ensuring that there are clear progression and compensation incentives for employees who help to drive this culture by prioritising learning.

 

Utilising new skills pathways 

Dispelling regimented learning and enabling flexibility with education through digestible courses and online accessibility will prove vital. We continue to see a growing appetite for new forms of credential, like micro-credentials, having recorded a 59% increase in Professional Certificate enrolments on Coursera from British learners.

 

The modular format of micro-credentials allows learners to acquire specific skills or knowledge without committing to traditional education formats that demand a high financial and opportunity cost up front. They are also often provided by leading industry partners, such as Google, Meta, and IBM.

 

With the world of work changing at unprecedented pace, the availability of micro-credentials that can adapt to the changing demands of the job market and reskill learners at speed and scale will be a key component of any successful skills strategy.

 

Looking ahead

If the UK is to grow after 15 years of stagnation, the UK needs to solve its long-standing productivity problem. If the UK is to improve productivity, it needs a skilled workforce. Any growth strategy that does not place reskilling and upskilling at its heart will repeatedly run into skills shortages as a limiting factor.

 

For the last 15 years, the country has seen a decreasing emphasis on adult skilling from both businesses and government alike. If there were any doubts among the incoming government about the importance of reversing these trends, they should remind themselves that there is a potential $4.4 trillion bounty at stake - and the world is upskilling to capture as much of it as possible.

 

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Nikolaz Foucaud is Managing Director EMEA at Coursera

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and Ivanko_Brnjakovic