New research from CRM giant Salesforce (opens in new tab) suggests that an alarming proportion of UK workers are not confident in their digital capabilities, despite ranking digital skills as the most important for the future workplace.
The report comes in the wake of the UK’s Autumn Statement, during which the Chancellor “pledged to make the UK ‘the world’s next Silicon Valley’”, according to Salesforce CEO Zahra Bahrololoumi.
The study of more than 2,000 individuals indicates that workers are blaming their current employers for their lack of skills, with 33% saying that their job doesn’t provide enough upskilling opportunities. Almost half (48%) of the participants wished they had an opportunity for digital education at school.
Digital skills in the UK
Despite being covered in schools across the UK to varying degrees, Salesforce reckons that the next generation of workers (currently aged between 13 and 18 years old) lack awareness of the importance of digital skills, ranking them in seventh place.
Salesforce also found that gender inequality remains an issue to contend with in the tech sphere, with computer science jobs ranking fifth for boys, and not even making the top 10 for girls.
“It is especially worrying that today’s school children don’t yet recognize digital skills as a priority for their future career. We are failing the next generation and must educate both parents and children urgently on the importance of digital skills across the board,” Bahrololoumi said.
The solution, according to Salesforce, is a collaborative effort between the industry, training providers and educational institutions to create a national online digital skills platform. To get the ball rolling, it has announced a grant worth more than £1.1 million to support education programs in the UK.
