WIREDGOV

Update on the latest AI skills and talent initiatives being joint-funded by industry and government.

Combined government and industry investment of £370 million will deliver 2,700 new AI PhD places in the UK. 1,700 of these PhD places have been allocated to advance discoveries in bioscience and tackle challenges like feeding the world’s growing population while helping people stay healthier, for longer.

This investment is part of a suite of recent AI skills announcements helping to solve the UK’s Grand Challenges and meet some of the commitments made in the AI Sector Deal.

At the Autumn AI Skills and Talent Initiatives event there was a strong emphasis on the importance of diversity. Minister for Digital and Broadband, Matt Warman highlighted the need for diverse ideas and representation to ensure tech works for everyone. In his opening remarks he said, “If we get this right the opportunities are huge but we will only get this right if we build the right partnerships”.

It is important that these new courses are “student-centric” and support individuals that may have had a negative experience of education so far. Currently in the UK there’s a 13% gap between the chances of white and BAME students getting a first or upper second degree, even when other factors are controlled for. We need to better understand why this is the case and what can be done to mitigate this difference.

Interestingly, only 18% students choose to move away to study and work in a different area to where they grew up. This tells us that many people are not prepared to move to for a better job and we need to consider the impact of this choice.

Technology and online learning can be part of the solution but we also need to ensure that these jobs are made available in regions outside of London. As Jacqueline de Rojas, techUK President highlighted, by 2022 there will be 1.2m unfilled jobs in the tech sector. Regional engagement will have an important role to play in filling this jobs.

Gila Sacks, Director, Digital and Tech Policy at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport spoke about the need to upskill individuals quickly, ensuring they’re business-ready professionals, equipped with the skills required by the market.

The later panel focused on demand, supply, and value in relation to these latest AI skills announcements. It was clear that demand for highly skilled tech individuals is obviously high. In industry alone 93% of UK tech companies say that the lack of digital skills available is affecting their commercial operations. 

There are lots of important initiatives out there attempting to help bridge the digital skills gap. Many of these online courses may be particularly helpful to SMEs who don’t always have the capacity in-house to train staff.

An important next step is to find out more about where the demand for online larning is coming from. What sort of people are enrolling on these courses and what are their motivations? Who’s missing out and how do we engage with those audiences typically harder to reach? The importance of lifelong learning was also emphasised on this panel.

I highlighted that there is an enormous amount of provision out there, but it's often small-scale, hard to find and difficult to navigate. A motivated individual looking to progress a career in the tech sector would struggle to find the information they needed to make the change. 

techUK is calling for a skills brokerage platform, a single, centralised platform where individuals can find information on skills pathways, current schemes/courses available to them at the national and local level and relevant job opportunities. Stakeholders, such as the Institute for Coding and Data Skills Taskforce, are currently conducting some pilots in this area. It’s important that, alongside government, we join together to make this concept a reality.

Commenting on the AI skills announcement, Sue Daley, associate director, technology and policy at techUK yesterday said:

"Creating a steady pipeline of tech talent is imperative to remaining a leader in the AI and data revolution. Government-Industry collaboration is crucial to addressing the UK’s current digital skills gap and we are proud to see industry demonstrating its commitment to developing the next generation of AI talent.

This is a brilliant step towards securing the UK’s AI future and we look forward to continuing to work with DCMS and the Office for AI to support their work in this area.”