Robin Ghurbhurun, Managing Director for further education, and skills at Jisc discusses the digital skills employers need for National Apprenticeship Week 2023.

Closing the skills gapWith the increasing need for digital skills in almost every job, ensuring staff have the correct level of knowledge and experience, or the opportunity to gain it, is essential. Digital apprenticeships and T-Levels are effective programmes for this. This week, the Government announced it will boost access to apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships by allowing those opportunities to be advertised via the universities and colleges admissions service (UCAS).  This will help put technical and vocational education on an equal footing with traditional academic access routes. It will also provide learners with more information on which to base decisions about their career path. Individuals must be able to make informed choices that are right for their circumstances and preferred way of learning and working.Future-proofing careersWith more digital learning options on offer than ever, the onus is on education leaders, learning providers and businesses to ensure these pathways are aligned to the critical skills the UK needs for economic growth and recovery.The use of digital has evolved education and learning so rapidly because of the COVID-19 pandemic that the future is already here.  Just look at the jobs essential to the UK economy now compared with even ten years ago and the transformation is clear to see. Driverless car engineer, cloud architect, big data scientist and blockchain analyst are all roles that have been developed in the last decade which help the UK remain competitive. Effective collaboration between industry and education has enabled this rapid acceleration. Across UK tertiary education, many institutions have already embraced the need for digital skills and the necessary collaboration with industry which support that learning. These providers are working hard to embed digital into their curriculum design, delivery, and culture.The importance of industry collaborationBasingstoke College of Technology (BCoT) has developed a suite of immersive classrooms designed and funded in collaboration with business. The initiative, called LaunchSpace, has already benefited more than 2,000 learners since it was built during the height of the pandemic. It also works to improve the local community through prioritising industry-based learning and involving local businesses in education.BCoT’s head of digital learning, Scott Hayden, says:“The space acts as preparation for what our industry expert teachers and their local connections need it to be – flexible, agile, collaborative and dynamic, giving learners the opportunity to work alongside different people.” BCoT is a great example of what can be done when industry and education work together towards a common goal. It is encouraging to see increasing numbers of education leaders and learning providers actively seeking out local, national, and even global businesses to partner with to develop digital skills. Last year, I organised for further education (FE) and higher education (HE) sector leaders, to join Jisc experts in visiting the UK headquarters of two of the largest cutting-edge digital organisations in the world, Amazon and Siemens. During the visits, the delegates discussed ideas around technical innovation, leadership and culture.   They also focused on barriers to innovation, which, for FE in particular, means balancing capital investment and operating costs while trying to embrace new technologies and ways of working. The opportunity to talk through these issues with large organisations which have experienced similar challenges on both a macro and local level was extremely beneficial to attendees and forging those relationships will help drive collaboration.   National Apprenticeship Week 2023The theme for National Apprenticeship Week 2023 is ‘Skills for Life’. As the global digital landscape continues to grow and evolve, the skills needed by industry will follow suit. This is why it is so important for employers to continuously assess the digital skills of their whole workforce, not just entry level staff, and to work with the education sector to provide opportunities for development through academic or vocational routes.  Further information A good starting point for education leaders when considering the digital skills needed for the future workforce is the Jisc employability toolkit.