The productivity gap with France, Germany and the USA could be significantly closed with a three-year action plan for IT skills launched on 14 June by e-skills UK, the employer-led organisation responsible for IT skills development.
In the IT industry alone the programme of IT skills improvements is expected to close the productivity gap with Germany by £1.8 billion, France by £1.6 billion and with the USA by £0.3 billion.
Cisco, IBM, British Airways, Ford and EDS are among the high-profile employers who have pledged to invest in the action plan, called the Sector Skills Agreement for IT (SSA for IT). Employers will offer resources including employee hours, work placements, ’business guru’ advisors in support of undergraduate programmes and development, design and delivery of programmes such as Computer Club for Girls (CC4G) and vocational qualifications like ITQ linked to the e-skills Passport. The Minister for Skills, Phil Hope, joined e-skills UK at the central London launch with employers.
e-skills UK has developed the action plan following extensive research which demonstrated that one-quarter of British businesses lack employees with the everyday IT skills to do their jobs. One-third of companies with vacancies for IT staff also find them hard to fill, and of these companies, more than three-quarters (76%) said they had to delay the development of new products and services.
Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4g), a key component of e-skills UK’s SSA, was launched on the same day. CC4G is an award winning programme which will bring to life the fun and excitement of a career in technology for 150,000 girls, aged 10-14, from September. The programme, being rolled out nationally to 3,600 schools, has been developed by e-skills UK in partnership with the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA).