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Helping Technology and Education Connect Better

  • Writer: Amer Loubani
    Amer Loubani
  • Mar 1, 2022
  • 5 min read

After my first piece on how the gap between higher education and careers in technology could be bridged, I wanted to provide further thoughts on how exactly educational institutions can prepare young people for the tech roles the UK is crying out for.


The fact the UK is struggling with a massive shortage of tech talent has been clear for a while. TotalJobs.com reports that 71% of technology employers expect to face at least a moderate skills shortage this year. The top areas of pain include Cyber Security, BI & Data Management & Software Development. The report also states that only 10% of tech professionals surveyed believe the UK tech industry is prepared to compete globally. Add to this the UK’s exit from the EU, which added further restriction to the pool of talent from which the UK tech industry can draw from. Developing the talent in this country to fill the gap is one of the major solutions available, and below I will outline how the UK government and educational institutions could help feed young talents directly into the roles needed by the technology industry and fast.


Make Degrees Work For Roles – Not Vice Versa


According to the Financial Times, some UK employers are turning to hiring school leavers and training them to fill recruitment gaps in order to deal with the shortages highlighted above. The fact recruiters are trying to reduce graduate hiring and plan to take on the preparation of young people for roles themselves is telling. It shows the level of doubt that exists over how much universities are doing to correctly upskill young people for many roles that have recently emerged or continue to emerge, especially in tech. Degrees naturally produce students who command higher wages, and this may work for traditional career paths where one kind of degree always leads to the same kind of job. In industries such as tech however, generic degrees in Computer Science and IT may not be adequate for many roles that are specialised and highly in demand, and employers may be unwilling to pay the incomes commanded by unprepared graduates (through no fault of the graduate). If this issue isn’t remedied, employers may see less and less benefit in meeting graduate wages for graduates that may not be ready without extensive further training. The gap is wide and only widening, data compiled by job search engine Adzuna shows there have been more than 100,000 tech vacancies posted on their website every week in the past 12 months (Financial Times). Action must be taken to start providing manpower for these roles.


Universities can remedy this in two ways. Firstly, they can begin to refine degree offerings much more by studying the industry and targeting clusters of roles with the teaching given to students. Offering a deeper AI, Data Science & Robotics variation of a BSc in Computer Science would be much better than offering the standard degree alone with a few modules leaning towards the particular specialism. University education has to become more targeted, and as such they should work with employers to create job models or frameworks to target. These detailed job models can be used to design courses, identifying the key skills graduates should have before moving into the world of work. Government regulation of education must promote this, helping industry and education work much closer together than they do currently. Second, universities may benefit from diversifying the modes of study on offer. Universities need not be limited to degree courses only. Shorter and cheaper technical training modules or courses may achieve the aims of the industry more suitably and swiftly than degree offerings currently do. This approach produces job-ready graduates much quicker, helping to plug the widening workforce gaps for jobs of this type. If universities are unwilling to offer this, the government must ensure correct institutions are stood up quickly to achieve the above aims. Giving young people routes into work is a government responsibility, it cannot be left to the private sector alone to solve the skills shortage currently experienced by the tech sector.


I think it would be useful to mention placement degrees and degree apprenticeships here. I did a degree with an integrated placement year myself, and found that year in industry very important to my preparation for the graduate world. The industry knowledge and function-specific training provided by that internhip was highly valuable, making me a suitable graduate for employers too. A step universities could take is to bring in placement years as mandatory to the degree courses experiencing skill difficulties, and ensure graduates are placed at a variety of different internships based on interest and the job roles they hope to target as a grad. Placement opportunities are difficult to find, so universities and industry must work together to ensure enough roles are forthcoming. My thoughts on degree apprenticeships are similar. More industry actors directly sponsoring degree courses and tailoring the education to their needs while giving students hands-on experience would be a massive step towards making education work for tech. The more collaboration the better.


Start Early


It is clear to me that the tide of emerging jobs cannot be stemmed by university education alone. Splitting the stream of talent delivery to the workplace by championing apprenticeships, technical courses and degree education involves more low-level work as young people pass through high school and college. Recognising and defining the roles on offer in the tech industry, rather than leaving the tech job market hazy with one or more roles under many different names helps schools pitch these careers to young students. As a result of that effort, students can mature their interests at an earlier stage, to the point where they would actively pursue technical courses/apprenticeships at the end of college over less relevant degrees. Government must take firm action to ensure this outreach becomes mandatory. The industry must be clear in defining their needs, and educational institutions must take the initiative from there to expose students to roles and emerging industries much sooner. Virtual and in-person work shadowing days can help clearly visualise the day to day responsibilities of any given job, helping students capture their ambition.


UK Tech News reports that 82% of all jobs in the UK list digital skills as a requirement. This highlights the need for digital skills to be a bigger part of early education. The same site reports that young people taking IT subjects at GSCE level has actually dropped 40% in the last 7 years, which increases the pain experienced by employers trying to hire the right skillsets. Tech education should become as central to education as Mathematics and English Language in order to ensure graduates possess the right digital capabilities to navigate new and emerging roles.


With the right approach, higher education can ensure skill gaps do not grow further. A proactive effort is the most important, because as the tech industry develops more roles are surely going to emerge. The UK as a whole stands to gain if talent development is made a key focus through a systematic approach to supplying qualified young people to employers. As usual, time is of the essence.


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 opinions regarding careers in technology, rather than concrete proposals based on research. Feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn (on the about page) if you have any questions.


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