How can the public sector close the digital skills gap

Digital skills are critical to the future of the UK’s economic growth and delivery of public services, so how can we bridge the digital skills gap?

Facing the backdrop of a cost of living crisis, high inflation, and a competitive job market, it is hard for leaders in all sectors to attract, train and retain the people they need to support their future and close the digital skills gap.

What do we mean by the digital skills gap?

Our recent research report, ‘The Nature of the Digital Skills Gap’, analysed the issue of the digital skills gap across the UK. As well as looking at skills needed for individuals, we also addressed the skills and characteristics of digital success at the Team, Organisation and Societal levels.

The research found that over a third (35%) of workers think digital skills simply mean the ability to fix IT issues. Similarly, half (47%) think it means the ability to code and programme, build a website or create mobile and computer applications. However, our view is that a broader and more inclusive view of skills is needed:

At AND, we believe there are key behaviours to nurture in individuals, including communicating with empathy, developing oneself, and developing others. We need to combine these with professional skills, such as product management or technical skills in areas such as data, to provide people with the tools they need to work well, whatever technology is around the corner.

Regarding teams, how they function together matters for digital greatness; without high-performing teams, organisations cannot thrive in the face of uncertain and fast-paced change. It is key to develop traits such as psychological safety, diversity of thought, learning and feedback, and clear and consistent digital disciplines and practices to enable this.

And finally, we believe that organisations need to intentionally target and nurture cultural traits to enable individuals and high-performance teams. These include having a clear and shared mission and purpose, being good at understanding people, their motivations, development needs and aspirations, and providing an environment in which people can be themselves, explore possibilities and thrive.

However, we have some way to go to close the digital skills gap

With 61% of business growth depending on digital outcomes, we estimate that a UK workforce of eight million digitally skilled individuals is needed to deliver the associated £240Bn potential economic benefits between now and 2026.

And despite 83% of leaders agreeing that their organisations need to be fit for our digital future and telling us they are making good progress, our research findings tell a different story.

58% of respondents claim they have never received upskilling in digital skills

For example, almost 6 in 10 (58%) respondents to our survey claim they have never received upskilling in digital skills. About the same (58%) said that they have been affected negatively by a lack of digital skills, with almost a third (29%) being turned down for pay raises, promotions or not putting themselves forward for promotion. This, in turn, places increased market pressures on those with these skills, often pricing some organisations out of the market.

A shared struggle

The public sector shares all the challenges private sector businesses face but with additional burdens in its ability to match salary expectations for in-demand talent and a culture that can make agile ways of working hard.

A recent paper Transforming for a digital future: 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data 2022 to 2025, sets out the government’s ambition to transform digital public services in the years ahead, outlining a specific mission to build digital skills at scale within departments and agencies. When establishing which skills we see as enabling the UK’s future digital greatness, it is imperative to take a broad approach, including team and organisational traits, rather than narrowly focusing on niche technology skills.

Embracing the Senior Civil Service is also key, as our research showed a tendency for C-Suite leaders to place less importance on developing their own skills (54%) than their middle management (74%). Suppose our ambition for digital government and public services is to be achieved. In that case, we need all levels and professions to embrace these skills as part of their core curriculum and apply them consistently from early policy development to operational implementation.

Embracing the AND view of skills

The opportunity for business and society if the UK gets digital upskilling is huge. For us, it starts by embracing the technical AND creative, the Individual AND the Team, the Team AND the Organisation; only then can we be sure we’ll have the skills in place to thrive.

This piece was written and provided by Chris Gray, Chief for Public Sector, AND Digital