Bridging the gap between higher education and careers in technology

Two recent articles I came across brought my attention to the relationship between careers in technology and higher education. The first was a BBC article, outlining the rapidly growing digital skill shortage in the UK, and the negative impact this is having on the uptake of rapidly growing jobs in tech. The article supplements this by outlining how little the education system is doing to help boost the connection between early digital learning, and the pursuit of tech careers later down the line. The second, by the Financial Times, discusses UK government plans to lower the salary level at which graduates start repaying student loans. The article indicates this move is primarily aimed at pushing young people towards vocational/technical training over degrees, a strategy no doubt aiming in part to fill the ballooning pool of roles emerging in AI, cloud and robotics. The rest of this blog will pick up on the themes the BBC has highlighted, discussing how best higher education could solve the issues they face creating the technology professionals of the future.

The problems

The BBC's analysis provides four main reasons why the digital skills gap is growing (these are directly quoted):

• a lack of clearly defined job roles in certain fields

• a lack of understanding and guidance about potential career paths

• a lack of relatable role models

• a difficulty in making many technical professions seem appealing to young people, especially young women

I would like to address these, drawing from my personal experiences, and recommend an approach that could remedy each of them in turn.

Regarding the first two points, I felt their impact most acutely during my transition from pre-university education to joining a course at university. While studying for my A levels (in the UK) I found it intensely difficult to map my ambitions in tech to a particular role and experienced further difficulty separating roles from each other and understanding how they fit the industry picture. To remedy this, I as well as many other young students would have benefitted massively from pre-university careers guidance of a more specific nature. Rather than mapping industries to degrees, job roles should be mapped to the former then eventually the latter. Additional content should also be provided to illustrate what the industry area looks like, and the common role profiles found within it. This guidance should not end after undergraduate admission, as university courses would in my opinion benefit massively from bigger industry involvement in shaping careers and study. Designing courses for roles is the only way higher education can match the pace of growth currently experienced in the tech sector. Clearly defining job roles would also help, something governmental bodies can contribute in collaboration with industry.

Role models are important, they help young people chart a set of standards against which they hope to judge themselves in the future. My issue with this, however, is that the most prominent role models pushed towards me in education were CEO's or directors who've worked from bottom to top to arrive at their current station. I found myself unable to make a connection, or plot a starting point post-graduation from which to start achieving my ambitions. Establishing solid role profiles for entry-level roles, as well as providing a progression overview to enable career planning would help young graduates. Supplying the correct young ambassadors from industry to perform outreach activities on higher education campuses would also ensure young people can frame who they hope to be after university.

While I studied at university, the difficulty of the more technical professions in technology from the outside looking in was obvious to me as well as many of my peers. Other than my student friends who had grown up in a family of Computer Scientists, careers in programming or AI seemed hopelessly inaccessible 3-4 years down the line. If I was to put a label on the main source from which my worry stemmed, it would be from my lack of understanding as to what these roles actually entail. Being introduced to modules introducing AI and coding at its very basic level did the best job at introducing access to these career paths, and this introduction is what I think could raise the appeal of these careers - especially earlier in education. Introducing concepts such as coding and robotics in secondary education (very briefly) and continuing to pick up these pieces as young students progress towards university would, in my opinion, massively assist in breaking down the fear barrier regarding these careers. Without fear or obscurity, interest grows and if these seeds are planted early in academia, it might help propel interested students towards specific vocational training that zeroes in on the roles experiencing massive growth (efforts to provide these must be stepped up). This approach might also help achieve the government's goal of avoiding graduates emerging underqualified from degrees that did little to facilitate preparation for these jobs simply because there was no other option. As I conclude writing this post, Rishi Sunak unveils investment of £34 million in AI at the Conservative party conference, this proposal includes 2,000 scholarships in AI and Data Science. Interesting times ahead...

Author: My name is Amer, I'm a Computer Science with Business graduate currently working in tech consulting. My thoughts in this blog are based on my experiences during education and what I think could fix the issues I faced, rather than research into what education can do to close the skill gap. Feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn (on the about page) if you have any questions.

Sources:

• UK 'heading towards digital skills shortage disaster': https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56479304

• No 10 plans to lower salary level at which graduates start repaying loans: https://www.ft.com/content/f77fe7ee-6165-427a-8754-e90d22d5689f

• Rishi Sunak unveils £34 million for AI research and bursaries: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/rishi-sunak-unveils-ps34-million-ai-research-and-bursaries