Digital skills gap costs UK economy £63bn a year

The digital skills gap costs the UK economy £63bn a year, according to a report by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, and MPs are  calling on the government to take action.

The Digital skills crisis report said although the government has done well in putting in place “effective interventions” in the last parliament by introducing the computing curriculum in schools and encouraging take-up of digital apprenticeships, it needs to do more.

It added that the government needs to “offer genuine leadership and vision for the future of digital skills and our digital economy”.  

“Digital skills are becoming increasingly essential for getting access to a range of products and services. However, there is a digital divide where up to 12.6 million of the adult UK population lack basic digital skills,” said the report.

“An estimated 5.8 million people have never used the internet at all. This digital skills gap is costing the UK economy an estimated £63bn year in lost additional GDP.”

Science and Technology Committee chair Nicola Blackwood said while the UK is a leader when it comes to technology, the government needs to take “concerted action to avoid falling behind”.

“The government deserves credit for action taken so far, but it needs to go much further and faster. We need action on visas, vocational training and putting digital skills at the heart of modern apprenticeships,” she said.

She also urged the government to publish its digital strategy “without delay”, and added that it “must deliver”.

In March 2016, culture secretary and digital economy minister Ed Vaizey said the strategy was ready to be published, but the government has postponed its release of the strategy until after the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU).

The committee said in the report that they “cannot understand why the government has delayed for so long the publication of its digital strategy”.

“In the absence of further details, there is a doubt that it will give sufficient weight to the vital areas for change that we have highlighted in our inquiry,” the report said.

“By setting out a vision for the future, to be delivered by collaborative work between industry, educators and government, the strategy should be more than the ‘aspirational’ document that ministers propose – it should be a strategy that actually delivers.”

The report added that the strategy should commit the government “to annual dynamic mapping” of initiatives and public spending on digital skills.

“In its forthcoming digital strategy, the government needs to establish an effective pipeline of individuals with specialist skills in data science, coding and a broader scientific workforce that is equipped with a firm grounding in mathematics, data analysis and computing,” it said.

The report called for the digital strategy to include benchmarks and defined outcomes, goals for developing better basic digital skills, increasing the number of computer science students and digital apprenticeships and fostering digital champions.