The ‘skills gap’ — the whats and the whys
The ‘skills gap’ — an ever-important phenomenon which has gained the attention of hawk-eyed employers, as a proportion of students and employees have been unable to keep up with the frequent changes to skills requirements within the workplace.
Modern advancements in technology and globalisation have worked hand-in-hand to produce a number of trends: greater diffusion (of communication and ideas), faster development and a greater emphasis on commercial value. The result of such advancements and trends have changed our lives and the way we work as the rapid nature of modern advancements and commercialisation have created a need for an ever-evolving set of skills.
So what is the ‘skills gap’?
The ‘skills gap’ refers to the difference between the skills which you need within your role and the skills you currently have. For individuals, this means that you may not have the right skills for the jobs available, making you underskilled or overskilled. For example, you may have a degree but you lack an understanding of a particular computer programme which is a requirement for various roles across your industry. For businesses, this means that roles are taking longer to fill and workers in existing roles are less productive. For industries, this means that the rate of progress could slow down. For the economy, this could have a significant impact on productivity and growth if ‘skill gaps’ are profound and cross-industry.
So, why does the ‘skills gap’ exist?
Education
The educational sphere is geared towards examinations, grades and entry requirements. As a result, both students and teachers are grade-oriented without focusing on the different types of skills which students can gain by studying a variety of subjects.
Despite the expansion of higher education over the previous two decades, graduates are struggling to demonstrate both basic and key skills required in the workplace. A recent OECD report showed that there are more graduates than non-graduates in the job market, however, skill gaps are arising in basic literacy, numeracy, and IT skills. In addition, students and graduates are failing to learn the importance of soft skills such as communication, collaboration and creativity, due to the emphasis on grades at school and higher education. As a result, they are starting their careers as results-minded workers instead of skills-minded.
There is a division between education and employment. Career paths are often represented as linear and outdated with universities, careers services and companies advertising a narrow selection of roles relating directly to the title of your degree. As a result, universities are failing to focus on the skills which students gain over the course of their degree, so students are not developing the skills needed for the breadth of roles available to them — or the awareness of the roles in the first place.
Unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that inequality still affects both education and subsequent employment. Although there are rising numbers of university entrants from disadvantaged backgrounds, the majority of linear career paths, notably politics, journalism and law, are dominated by privately-educated employees. If our education system transformed from grade and institution-oriented to skills-oriented, we could overcome the inequalities facing students and graduates, making everyone’s skills just as valuable as eachothers.
Training
Training has taken the backseat in company culture due to impatient recruitment processes aiming for the final product in order to save money on in-house training.
Okay, that might sound like a fatalist view. However, according to research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in their report ‘From ‘inadequate’ to ‘outstanding’: making the UK’s skills system world class’, there was a 20% decline in work-related off-the-job training between 1998 and 2018, and the majority of training was health and safety-related in around a third of all businesses in the UK. The CIPD report cited statistics from the Continuous Vocational Training Survey, which showed that UK employers spent an average of 226 euros per employee on training in 2010, compared to 511 euros spent per employee on training on average across the EU.
Although a lower average spending on training does not necessarily mean that UK workers receive less training than workers in European companies, the skills gap in the UK says otherwise. The persistent lack of training facilitating a skills gap is even more concerning post-Brexit due to a lower accessibility to migrant labour from EU countries, increasing pressure on the UK talent pool. To add fuel to the fire, the pandemic has exposed a skills chasm as the move to remote work and rapid digital transformation has deepened the disconnect around skills.
The training woes don’t stop there. The Social Mobility Commission published a report on the Adult skills gap and the falling investment in adults with low qualifications,which found that disadvantaged adults with the lowest qualifications are the least likely to access adult training, despite being the group who would benefit most. They also found that graduates are three times more likely to receive training than those with no qualifications, while professionals and managers are about twice as likely to receive training as lower-skilled workers. This shows that a lack of social mobility in training opportunities is hindering employment opportunities for the most disadvantaged groups in the UK.
Technology
Technology is both progressive and disruptive. New technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation have the potential to take over particular roles in the future, whilst creating new roles in support of the new technologies. The rate at which new roles are being created or current roles are being transformed is too fast for workers to upskill in time, leading to a digital skills gap.
A lack of social mobility in the access to technology and IT skills is still an issue. According to estimates from Ofcom, around 1.8 million children in the UK alone (approximately 9 per cent) did not have access to a laptop, desktop computer or tablet at the start of the pandemic, while more than 880,000 children are living in households with only a mobile internet connection. This suggests that a proportion of future workers could struggle due to a lack of IT skills and confidence. More should be done for children without digital access in order to avoid the digital skills gap which could hinder their progress as technology continues to transform the workplace.
Is there any hope for closing the skills gap?
If we are to close the ever-increasing skills gap in the UK, we need a complete overhaul of the education, training and technology sectors which exacerbate results-oriented mindsets and social divisions within our society.
I know what you’re thinking, that seems pretty impossible given the current political climate. However, there are steps which individuals, educational institutions and businesses can adopt to mitigate the effects of the skills gap whilst empowering individuals to become skills-oriented in their endeavours.
So, how can we overcome the skills gap? Read our next blog to find out more!
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