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Superfast Broadband

Skills trends and requirements

March 2012

Ben Neildb.neild@exeter.ac.uk

www.swslim.org.uk

Demand side

1.Business leaders

2.Other Staff

3.Technology Professionals

4.Consumers / users

Supply side

•GCSEs

•A Level

•HE

•CPD

Presentation structure

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A 2010 survey in Somerset suggested that:

•23% of enterprises stated that they did not think ICT would be of benefit to their business

•19% were unsure of the ICT needs

•10% identified ‘lack of confidence’ and 19% ‘uncertainty as to how to access ICT support ’ as barriers to take up.

It‘s not all Rocket Science – email, a website, websales, skype phone calls etc etc save money and raise productivity.

Business Leaders

Critical to realising the economic benefits of superfast broadband, is the need to build the capacity and understanding of the benefits of broadband among local businesses Broadband Delivery – Lessons Learned, DCMS, Nov 2011

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Nearer to the leading edge, Superfast Broadband will:

•Support Cloud Computing

•Allow borderless collaboration across virtual teams;

•Enable businesses to reach world-wide markets; and to

•Explore a myriad of applications (3d printing, walk-through models, body scanning) that are just emerging

... Plus the applications and business models that we have yet to imagine.

Business Leaders

The UK urgently needs to rapidly move up the maturity curve in terms of attitudes to technology: it should be no more acceptable for those in leadership roles to lack an understanding of technology than it is to lack and understanding of finance. E-skills UK, SSA for the Digital Economy, 2009

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Human resources

90% of 650 businesses surveyed in Cornwall identified remote and home working to be a ‘very important’ result of superfast broadband

Accounting

The UK ranks 26th of 27 EU Countries for both a) the proportion of businesses using e-invoicing

Marketing

The UK also ranks 26th for the proportion of enterprises using analytical Customer Relation Management EU 2010 Assessment of Digital Competitiveness

Many others...

Who need to know how to log-on to remote servers, set up skype, synchronise phone & PC diaries etc etc etc !!!!

Other staff

There is a huge appetitie for superfast broadband, but a mismatch between the level of demand and the knowledge about how it can be exploited E-skills UK

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The lower-level jobs are being off-shored

Technician skills requirements now mainly at Level 3 or, more often, Level 4

Technology professions moving deeper into the boardroom

• Generating & analysing business / customer related data

•Supporting increasingly complex technology systems

•Project Management

Age of new recruits is rising – increasingly recruited at graduate level or recruit people with wider business experience.

Technology Professionals

Employment in Technology Occupations grew 5% between 2001 and 2009, twice the growth rate for all occupations E-skills UK

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1. Programming and Application development, esp. for mobile devices

2. Project Management

3. Help Desk & Technical Support

4. Networking

5. Business Intelligence

6. Data Centre

7. Web 2.0

8. Security

9. Telecommunications

The majority of these are required to support developments in mobile, cloud-based and on-line technologies.

Technology Professionals

Computerworld - Nine hot skills for 2012

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Businesses have an incentive to develop on-line services that are intuitive & can be used without training.

However, an estimated 11.6m adults in England in 2008 are digitally excluded

•22m people use technology at work – 77% of the working population.

•employers are increasingly using the internet to advertise, recruit and train employees.

•a lack of basic ICT skills is a disadvantage in finding and securing work

•there is evidence to suggest a link between internet usage by employees and improved business productivity.

•a lack of basic ICT skills may hold people back from taking up learning, skills opportunities and from making progress to higher levels of learning.

Consumers / Users

Digital skills have an impact on an adult’s equality of access to information and services; employability; social inclusion, engagement in further learning, and on wider business productivity.

Independent Review of ICT User Skills Baroness Estelle Morris June 2009

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Within the proposed GIF bid area, in 2011, there were 238 A level entries in Computer studies and 429 in ICT, out of a total of 49,000.

A Level Entries

ICT & Computer studies, A Level Entries, England, 2002 to 2011

-

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

16,000

18,000

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

ICT Computer Studies

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This is a recognised problem

The current ICT curriculum is ‘demotivating and dull’

‘Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word or Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11-year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations’

Michael Gove

ICT Teaching Reform

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Higher Education

In the GIF bid area, in 2010/11, there were 10,150 applications to read ‘Mathematical and Computer Science’. Down from 13,620 in 2001.

80% of these applications were made to HEIs in the GIF bid area (a lot!)

20% of applications were accepted (NB students often apply to 4 HEIs)

2003/04 2010/11 % ChangeComputer Science 1,875 1,260 -17%All qualifications 37,140 44,150 38%% of all 5.0% 2.9%

Qualifications achieved at SW HEIs, HESA

Computer science was the only subject to register a fall over this period.

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SFA Qualfications

In 2009/10, in the GIF bid area, there were 17,710 SFA funded ‘Starts’ in Business Information Technology & Telecommunication.

This equates to 2.7% of all Starts.

Business Information Technology and Telecommunications makes up: - 2.8% of Learner Responsive provision - 1.8% of Employer Responsive provision.

There were 460 Apprenticeship starts in this category, up from 150 the previous year.

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Work-related training

% of Apprenticeships at Level 3 and above, HotSW LEP

Incidence of work-related training, e skills UK, from LFS

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Work-related training

% of Apprenticeships at Level 3 and above, HotSW LEP

Incidence of work-related training, e skills UK, from LFS