Digital skills are as essential as literacy, according to Naomi Clayton, who will speak at PSE365’s Learning and Development virtual event taking place on Wednesday 9 June.
Ms Clayton, the Deputy Director for Research and Development at the Learning and Work Institute will be on Panel Discussion 5: Addressing the Skills Gap, where she will discuss digital skills.
She explained: “Basic digital skills have become essential skills. More than 9 in 10 businesses say that having a basic level of business skills is important for employees at their organisation.
“There’s high demand for basic digital skills. There’s growing demand for advanced digital skills as well. At the same time, we know that 30 million adults have low digital skills and one in four employers say that that their current workforce lack the basic digital skills that they need.
“So, we have a rise in demand for digital skills across different occupations; this is not something that is limited to IT and the digital sector.
“We’ve got rising demand across different sectors. But there are some significant shortages when it comes to digital skills in the workforce.
“It’s really important to find ways to improve people’s digital skills.”
The Learning and Work Institute is a research policy and development organisation, whose aim is to promote lifelong learning, full employment and inclusion and Ms Clayton said that having digital proficiency is an “essential” skill for the modern working environment.
She added: “We need a kind of step change in the government’s ambition around digital skills and we need partnerships between government, employers and providers to make sure that we do have the kind of skills and training in place to make sure we are able to meet future skills needs.”
Listen to Naomi and a host of other expert speakers at our PSE365 ‘Learning & Development’ virtual event on 9 June 2021. Register to attend here.
