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UK tech needs a forest of skills – we can help by one seed at a time
Tackling Economic Inequality - Create new businesses, jobs and skills, and increase supply chain resilience and capacity.
One of the reasons why people find technology such an exciting area to work in is its pace of change: new ideas and new transformations make for a constant flow of new, engaging challenges.
And yet, one of our biggest current challenges also seems to be a permanent feature of the technology landscape in the UK – and it’s not even an explicitly technical issue. The IT skills gap is a consistently reported problem, and recent figures give no indication that it might be abating. Last year, for instance, Forbes surveyed 500 British employers across a range of industries and found that 93% believe that there is a lack of supply of IT skills in the market.
Needless to say that the commercial base is also where the public sector predominantly fulfils its contracts, and a governmental focus on digitalisation is tapping into that same talent pool. The IT skills gap, in other words, is a big-picture problem which every organisation, public and private alike, is experiencing on an individual level.
I think there are two ways that organisations can and do react to this situation. One is competitive: investing in ways to attract skills into the organisation and secure a larger share of the talent pie. That competition can have progressive consequences on the employee experience, but does little to close the overall skills gap.
We also have the opportunity, though, to recognise that this is a collective challenge and act in a more collaborative spirit for longer-term benefits. Ultimately, skills are a resource which, like natural resources, we have to share – and that should encourage us to approach the challenge with a mindset of stewardship and development, ensuring that we both get the most out of the resources we have today and create more supply for the future.
What that growth should look like for technology skills is, I think, readily apparent. While the UK tech sector has come a long way over the last few decades in terms of broadening the makeup of its workforce and overcoming assumptions about what ‘kind’ of person works in technology, the fact remains that many social groups remain under-represented, both in terms of current workers and in terms of who joins the industry each year.
In other words, the larger body of people we need to tap into in order to meet the demand for tech skills is out there. We just need to give more people the confidence, inspiration, and opportunity to take that leap.
This big picture view could seem too daunting or even grandiose for individual professionals to address, but I don’t think that interventions need to have the scope and sweeping significance of national policy in order to make a big difference. To use the natural resources metaphor one more time, planting many small seeds now will deliver yields in the future.
What can that look like in practice?
It might be creating space for employees to work directly with schools, demystifying the industry and inspiring belief in students at a vital age. The business I work for, Kyndryl, collaborates with Skills Builder – a non-profit enterprise bringing hundreds of schools, colleges, employers and non-profit organisations to help young people develop essential soft skills – and facilitates office visits to give students in-person experience of thinking like a technologist. It might mean finding relatively low-effort, high-impact initiatives to address historical imbalances in the workforce. Kyndryl regularly dedicates marketing resources to celebrating the women in our workforce, highlighting the diversity of routes that people take into the industry to raise awareness around gender equity, and a number of our experts work with TechSheCan to run outreach sessions in schools.
And it doesn’t even need to be directly highlighting a tech business as a career destination; it might mean working with a charity like The Prince’s Trust, as I have alongside employees from Fulham Football Club, to run sessions on personal development and employability skills, overcoming some of the ‘soft’ skills gap which can make a huge difference in terms of who gets onto ambitious career paths. Other colleagues have also volunteered with the Prince’s Trust and I also recently delivered a pilot session for young entrepreneurs on ‘Building a Sustainable Business’ with The Prince’s Trust and peers from other companies enabling the next generation to develop ‘green skills.
The skills gap is something that gets reported on year in, year out, and so we shouldn’t be under any illusion that it’s going to take less than many years to fix it. That fact should only motivate us to take the many small actions, as individuals and as organisations, which might sow the seeds for our future workforce – and recognise and celebrate one another for doing so.
I believe that small everyday actions like this will add up to a meaningful difference.
Heather Cover-Kus
Heather is Head of Central Government Programme at techUK, working to represent the supplier community of tech products and services to Central Government.
Annie Collings
Annie joined techUK as the Programme Manager for Cyber Security and Central Government in September 2023. In this role, she supports the Cyber Security SME Forum, engaging regularly with key government and industry stakeholders to advance the growth and development of SMEs in the cyber sector.
Ellie Huckle
Ellie joined techUK in March 2018 as a Programme Assistant to the Public Sector team and now works as a Programme Manager for the Central Government Programme.
Ella Gago-Brookes
Ella joined techUK in November 2023 as a Markets Team Assistant, supporting the Justice and Emergency Services, Central Government and Financial Services Programmes.
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