{"id":3874,"date":"2016-06-15T08:56:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T08:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discovery-graduates.com\/?p=3874"},"modified":"2016-06-15T08:56:03","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T08:56:03","slug":"skills-gap-latest-the-digital-skills-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/skills-gap-latest-the-digital-skills-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Skills gap latest: the Digital Skills crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just yesterday, the BBC revealed that \u201cUrgent action is needed to deal with the UK&#8217;s digital skills crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re all familiar with what \u2018skills gaps\u2019 look like in certain industries that have been tackling skills challenges for a while now, but what do they look like in the digital world?<\/p>\n<p>According to the BBC,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The UK needs another <strong>745,000<\/strong> workers with digital skills by 2017 (that\u2019s next year!)<\/li>\n<li><strong>90%<\/strong> of jobs require digital skills to some degree<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And what\u2019s the impact if we don\u2019t meet these requirements? Well, skills gaps cost the economy around <strong>\u00a363bn a year in lost income<\/strong> (BBC).<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These figures are astounding and it appears there is a lot to do in a very short amount of time.<\/p>\n<p>The question that these headlines prompted us to ask is; where is the mismatch? Universities are producing tonnes of \u2018digital\u2019 graduates every year, in disciplines from Computer Science to Digital Media Studies, yet these graduates do not seem to be hitting the right chord with employers.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Computer Science graduates face the highest unemployment rates of all degree disciplines (11.4%) six months after leaving university.<\/p>\n<p>So, companies are crying out for employees with strong digital capabilities, yet the digitally-skilled graduate population are struggling to find employment.<\/p>\n<p>This begs the question; do companies know what \u2018good\u2019 looks like? Are they striving for an \u2018ideal\u2019 &#8211; a digitally skilled graduate with the business acumen and soft skills of an experienced recruit, and being disappointed when they cannot find the complete package?<\/p>\n<p>In order to ensure skills gaps don\u2019t widen and impact business performance, organizations may need to start looking at attracting talent differently.\u00a0 Despite the technical skills required for the role, employers still need to remember the importance of recruiting on individuals\u2019 values, attitude and behaviors.<\/p>\n<p>If companies can find graduates that share their values and are a good \u2018cultural\u2019 fit, can they then provide the technical skills required through specialized training courses?<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, some more technically minded graduates may need support in making the transition from academia to the work place, which can be achieved through professional development programs like our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.discovery-graduates.com\/what-we-do\/the-open-program\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">OPEN Program for Graduates<\/a>. Expecting this new generation of digital experts to be fully developed, both technically and commercially, at the start of their careers is perhaps a little ambitious.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, it is excellent to see initiatives like the BBC\u2019s Make It Digital campaign inspiring students as young as 10 to get involved in digital projects. From creating games to going backstage at live events and exploring the world of virtual reality, these opportunities are inspiring a new generation to create, invent and learn how the technological world operates. Encouraging digital interaction with young people <em>now<\/em> may go some way to closing these skills gaps in the future.<\/p>\n<p>For now, it\u2019s a case of looking at the excellent talent our world-class universities are producing and developing them appropriately for business success.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just yesterday, the BBC revealed that \u201cUrgent action is needed to deal with the UK&#8217;s digital skills crisis\u201d. We\u2019re all familiar with what \u2018skills gaps\u2019 look like in certain industries that have been tackling skills challenges for a while now, but what do they look like in the digital world? According to the BBC, The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}