Amid growing concerns about the digital skills gap, FutureDotNow, a tech industry coalition, has published a roadmap detailing the next steps for government, businesses, and civil society to increase the UK’s digital capacity and confidence.

According to the roadmap, 59% of the UK’s workforce is unable to do all of the digital tasks essential for work, leading to an accumulative £145 billion potential loss of cumulative GDP growth between 2018 and 2028.

The roadmap has three main points: it establishes a strategy, a means for delivery, and proposes cultural change.

Urgent Action

According to FutureDotNow’s data, only 41% of UK workers can accomplish all 20 essential digital skills for work.

8% can do zero tasks, and 27% can do 17 to 19 tasks.

Using digital productivity tools tends to be the most common skill people struggle with. Next, four out of the ten top skill gaps related to cybersecurity and being safe online.

Further, every industry is effected by the skills gap, even tech: 33% of tech sector workers do not have all 20 tasks under their belt.

Age also do not make people immune to a lack of digital skills – even 55% of digital natives, those aged 18 to 24 years old, are unable to do all 20 tasks.

23 to 34 years old are the most digital savvy, with 48% able to do all tasks. Over 65s have the lowest level of capability, with only 23% able to do all 20 essential digital tasks.

The Roadmap

FutureDotNow’s roadmap aims to establish and deliver a strategy which can create a cultural change to drive technical skills development.

Strategy

The strategy is mainly geared toward government and policy makers attempting to mitigate the digital skills gap.

Firstly, FutureDotNow recommended establishing a national ambition for essential digital capability and confidence in working age adults.

Essential to this is adopting the work skills outlined in the Essential Digital Skills Framework as the national minimum digital skill set required by people of working age. Government and industry should work together to regularly review the framework so its keeps pace with technological advances.

Increasing the awareness and data on the digital skills gap is also essential in closing it. This also would also enable improvements in digital skills to be tracked.

Galvanising businesses to equip employees with digital skills is also part of the strategy, as well as creating resources for businesses to train their employees.

Monitoring, coordinating, and reporting on progress is a vital part of the strategy to create greater visibility and account for progress.

Delivery

The recommendations for delivery are aimed at business, aiming to help employers provide their employees with the tools to build their Essential Digital Skills.

FutureDotNow recommends leveraging the common language of the Essential Digital Skills Framework to help promote digital skills across the board and keep track of their initiatives to build these skills.

The coalition is calling on businesses to assess the digital skillset of their workers, along with their capability and confidence levels completing the essential tasks.

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They are also calling on businesses to “actively” aid their people to grow their digital skills, ensuring they can at least accomplish the 20 work tasks outlined in the framework.

Culture

FutureDotNow is calling on business, government, and civil society as a whole to work together to accelerate insight and understanding of the cultural aspects affecting digital transformation.

They specifically want to know how to motive people to enahnce their digital capabilities to make their initiatives more practical and effective.

“We talk a lot about making the UK a science and technology superpower by 2030… but it means nothing if you do not have the customer or the skills base to use the products, never mind produce them in the first place,” Paul Scully, Minister for tech and the digital economy said.