Are Digital Skills jobs the preserve of the young? How do we make the most of the opportunities of digitalisation? Claire Arbery, director at West of England Institute of Technology offers her advice.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about ‘Do we know what we mean about digital skills and jobs?’ This piece focused on how we can inspire the next generation to embrace the rethinking of work through a digital lens. Quite rightly I was challenged on how we support those in work to embrace the skills and jobs in the digital sector and the digitalisation of work now.
Background
There has been a huge shift in the way we conduct business in the last 18 months, and the pandemic has forced many businesses to move to a more online presence, and has impacted the way businesses, do business, between themselves and their customers. As we hopefully, make steps towards a more open Economy with more workforces returning to site, now is the time to embrace change and support the workforce to move forward towards a recovery.
Progress so far
Some employers have already used the opportunity of training their staff during the pandemic with the availability of furlough allowing staff development and training to take place whilst the business is not trading at full capacity. Others have taken the time to review their businesses, and all now pivoting their businesses to embrace the changes brought to them by this situation.
There are many opportunities for individuals to learn digital skills for their roles, whether in an office ‘digital skills path’ learning how to be more confident with office packages, or more specialist roles such as Coding, or Data Analysis, there are many opportunities to reskill for a future role across the region, and of course, online.
How we can help
Here at the West of England Institute of Technology we are working with employers to seize the opportunities of the digitalisation of work. There are numerous opportunities across the region for both employers and individuals to engage with training to support their development. Further funding is expected to be announced over the coming weeks, and this government is firmly determined to put employers in the driving seat for specifying the skills and training their workforce needs to revive their business and growing for the future.
This can include reskilling staff to engage with new technologies that will have a positive impact on the business for the future. I have already had conversations with an employer on how we may update some staff on what ‘Machine Learning’ is in reality - with a view for those staff to use this knowledge in their future design work.
If you have a training need please feel free to reach out and we'd love to support you, on your digitalisation skills journey as either an individual or an organisation.
I believe that there is digital skilled job for all.
Feel free to contact me – [email protected]