Digital Skills Will Prove Vital for UK Recovery and the 'Level-up' Agenda

Policymakers and business leaders are now adding stronger warnings to fears that the UK will be hit by high levels of sustained unemployment as a result of the pandemic. It has undoubtedly been weighing on the Chancellor and yesterday was the protagonist in Rishi Sunak’s ‘mini-budget’ – a statement to the nation on rescuing the economy and saving "jobs, jobs, jobs". 

Central to the plans announced was a focus on the youngest economic agents in this country, 16 to 24-year olds. This is the group the Treasury said, "are expected to be disproportionately affected by the economic fallout of coronavirus." The fresh proposals outline funding measures for 30,000 more traineeships to get young people into work and a scheme called, ‘Kickstart’ that it is hoped will create thousands of jobs by directly paying the wages of young people currently claiming Universal Credit for up to 6 months. 

Undoubtedly, these new policies are designed to have an immediate impact and to limit the damage of Covid-19, that in financial terms could hit young people hardest as entry level positions and non-critical roles in firms are slashed. And whilst the short-term stimulus is essential and deployment at speed is the right move, we should be thinking where these policies go next and our long-term strategy for managing a new employment landscape in the UK. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an address to the nation last week where he pledged a ‘new deal’ to deliver jobs and infrastructure for Britain. At the heart of his speech was that technology, science and innovation will be a defining focus in the UK’s broader economic recovery, and commitments were promised to build a future-facing nation that is capable of modernising industries - representing our competitive advantage on the world stage. 

The link between the short-term ambitions to save jobs and the long-term economic strategy to level-up and modernise the nation is – skills. We must be asking the question of whether the UK has the domestic policies in place to build a workforce that has the necessary skills for the modern economy. That should be one of the primary considerations for the schemes being announced today and those moving forwards. Simply put; are we doing enough to digitally equip young people in this country?

The reason that digital skills are now more important than ever is that fundamentally the economy no longer looks the same. The jobs that were dwindling are now going at an alarming rate and there will be thousands of people that find upon leaving the furlough scheme that their job no longer exists. In addition, the weighting of this economy is changing faster than before – cyber, healthtech, edtech, network connectivity, collaboration tools, ecommerce – these are the verticals that are winning out from the pandemic and will be the employers that need talent to scale.

The challenge will be in creating a unified strategy for upskilling a nation so that the demand and supply of skillsets in the UK are not drastically unaligned. In a move to support this end, the organisation I founded, Tech London Advocates, has just launched the TLA Education Hub (tlaeducation.org.uk). It’s a new platform that enables schools, young people and parents to access digital skills recourses – the apprenticeships, edtech providers and training organisations – so that as we emerge from this crisis, we are working to prevent a potential talent void. 

Short term ‘rescue’ packages are a vital component of an economic crisis and certainly of the scale that the UK is facing. But I urge the government to consider how we transition the ambitions of the Chancellor’s announcement so that it fits the longer-term vision of creating a modern economy that serves all regions of the UK. There must be greater emphasis placed on digital skills and putting in place the programmes, curriculums and in-work training schemes needed to achieve this.