Employers are contributing more to the tech skills gap than they realise

Unrealistic expectations of what entry level tech talent looks like may be excluding it

The first in a series on the technical skills gap. We examine whether the 90% of businesses reporting struggling to fill technical roles have fair expectations of what entry level talent looks like.

If hand wringing about the digital skills gap in the UK could generate energy we wouldn’t be worrying about the impact of generative AI on electricity supplies. Employers bemoan it, Parliament debates it and governments launch strategies and councils to try to fix it – all seemingly to no avail.

This shortage of skills, which is hampering the growth of the whole economy not just the technology sector, doesn't seem to square with the countless accounts of graduates in technical disciplines struggling to enter the workforce. We’ll hear more from that perspective in the second article in this series.

Cybersecurity is an area which reports acute skills shortages. ISC2 is the member association for cybersecurity professionals and published research last Autumn which illuminated some of the challenges facing employers seeking cybersecurity talent.

Nearly 16,000 cybersecurity practitioners and decision makers took part in the research, and 90% of respondents indicated that they faced skills shortages at their organisations. More than half of those surveyed (58%) believed a shortage of skills puts their organisation at significant risk.

At the same time, 31% of participants said their security teams had no entry-level professionals on their teams, and 15% said they had no junior-level (1-3 years of experience) professionals. Moreover, hiring managers – 62% of which had open roles when the research was being conducted - were focusing on hiring mid to advanced level roles.

What does entry level look like?

The dearth of entry level tech roles the ISC2 research found goes some of the way to explaining why jobseekers are struggling even when employers have lots of open roles – the open roles are for those with several years or more of experience. Furthermore, a similar level of experience is being demanded even at entry level.

That trend is something picked up by Russ Shaw CBE, founder of Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, and founder member of London Tech Week. Shaw is one of the best-known advocates for UK tech start-ups and scale-ups and has been a consistent and effective campaigner on the challenges tech employers face.

He questions whether the higher education sector is equipping students with the skills that their future employers need.

“One factor behind this is the misalignment between what is taught in academic programmes and what the industry actually needs,” Shaw says, “Graduates often emerge with theory but lack the practical, hands-on experience and up-to-date technical skills employers are looking for.

“With the rise of remote and hybrid ways of working, ‘soft skills’ alongside technical capability, are increasingly in demand. Communication, teamwork, and problem-solving abilities are often not formally integrated into educational programming, and there is a real need for providers to address this.”

Whilst Shaw clearly thinks that universities need to do more to prepare graduates for the world of work, he also thinks employers need to accept some responsibility for training. He continues:

“Overly demanding job descriptions, requiring years of experience for entry-level roles, also exclude promising talent from the pipeline.

“It’s clear that closer collaboration between industry and education is essential to bridging this gap. Employers need to take responsibility for investing in entry-level training schemes, internships, and apprenticeships to equip graduates with the experience they need. Meanwhile, academic institutions have a duty to align curricula more closely with industry needs.”

We’re going to examine the role of higher education, and whether universities can or should teach ‘soft skills' in much greater detail in the second part of this series, but what Shaw’s comments highlight is that the expectations employers hold of the skills that post-graduates possess are often out of step with reality.

It’s a view shared by Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, founder of Stemettes and a trustee of the Institute for the Future of Work. Much of Imafidon’s policy work is focused on a greater awareness of the importance of lifelong learning. The present government is already reorganising the post-18 years education funding system around this concept, and Imafidon is clear about the role of tech employers in her vision of how it should work.

“I think industry needs to take on more responsibility for the idea of lifelong learning,” she says. “It isn't about getting someone that’s ready. It's getting someone and you're able to train them and grow them and allow them to continue to learn the whole way through.

“I think there's going to be a much bigger economic reckoning for graduate and apprenticeship employers that don't take a more inclusive stance on this. They will continue to say they have a skills gap.”

Recruit, retain, deploy

One employer which is taking an inclusive and creative approach to ensuring it doesn’t face a tech skills gap is UK Power Networks (UKPN).

Matt Webb, CIO at UKPN shares the companies approach to finding and developing the skills they need to continue to enable the digitisation which is facilitating the ongoing decarbonisation of the energy supply.

“We have a well-established model called ‘recruit, retain, deploy’ where we engage with recruitment consultancies on a contract basis. They'll bring in graduates, train them directly and we have them on a contract basis for two years, with the option at the end of that two years to make them permanent.

“It feeds a pipeline of new, fresh talent that has a core capability, maybe with a bit of theory in a very different discipline that we can upskill and move in that direction to expand that user base.”

UKPN also looks to existing staff and run extensive reskilling and personal development programmes. The company invests continually in its existing staff and Webb says it pays off well in terms of very low rates of attrition.

“We have what's called our Digital Academy, which is primarily apprenticeship levy funded courses everything from level three up to level seven. We also have an initiative promoted to all our staff called ‘Growth 40’ where we encourage them to undertake a minimum of 40 hours of professional development each year to just to refresh their skills.”

Part two of this series will be published next week and will feature contributions from universities, graduate and post-graduate job seekers and an examination of the role of automation is the recruitment process.