Bucks businesses falling behind on digital skills

Bucks Business First have discovered there's a critical digital skills gap for local businesses.

Although Bucks has a larger than average digital sector, with 1.3 times as many people working in the sector locally than the national average, it falls behind in new technology like robotics, green skills and artificial intelligence.

Latest findings from the Inno Industry initiative, a project supported by Buckinghamshire Business First, highlights the critical gap in the skills levels of the employees.

As is the case nationally and globally, digital and technology skills are in high and growing demand within Buckinghamshire. At the ‘specialist’ end of the spectrum, approximately 12,200 people work in specialist digital technology roles within Buckinghamshire firms, and approximately 1,600 Buckinghamshire residents work in such roles on a self-employed basis. At a sector level, around 14,000 people work in the ‘information and communication’ sector as employees, with others doing so on a self-employed basis.

Digital skills shortages exist across a range of sectors, not just within digital technology firms. Securing and utilising digital skills and digital technology can be particularly difficult for SMEs, which are highly concentrated in Buckinghamshire. 37% of respondents to a local business survey conducted recently stated that a lack of awareness of digital technologies or a lack of digital skills were the largest factors limiting the adoption of technology within their businesses.

The survey also found that a third of Buckinghamshire employers with employees deemed ‘not fully proficient’ stated that these employees lack the required IT skills.  

In order to overcome these gaps, skills leaders from across the county are working together to ensure there are sufficient resources available to people of all ages and stages in their careers, to be able to access opportunities locally to improve their knowledge and understanding in the subject.

Looking to the future, nearly three quarters of Buckinghamshire employers anticipated the need for new skills within their business over the next 12 months, of these, 45% anticipated the need for new digital skills. 

Heather Dean, Head of Skills and Business Support at Buckinghamshire Business First, said:

“In Buckinghamshire we have strong business clusters, including high performance engineering, assistive technologies and the creative industries clustering around Pinewood Studios, which we are keen to keep on supporting by taking full advantage of Industry 4.0 and its ethos of lifelong learning to prepare businesses for the digitalisation of the economy.”

For more information about the Inno Industry project, please go to our website at www.bbf.uk.com/news/helping-businesses-prepare-for-industry-4-0-the-4th-industrial-revolution or contact Heather Dean at heather@bbf.uk.com.