Being adept in making sense of data is now a critical, cross-functional skill within financial services, not least advice firms. But currently there is a data skills gap in the industry. So, how can we bridge that gap? asks Michael Houlihan, CEO, Generation UK
The impact of big data is, well, big. Huge, in fact.
The rapidly evolving way in which organisations collect, analyse and take actionable insight or automated decision from vast volumes of data is shaping the future of the digital economy. By extension, millions of employees across all industries will have seen that data now informs an increasingly important part of their roles. The finance industry is no exception, certainly as one of the sectors most reliant on large quantities of data.
Yet the industry has hit a bump in the road in the form of a complicated data skills gap within its workforce – an issue that many financial services companies will currently be all too aware of. Vacancies for roles that require an analytical skillset are increasingly difficult to fill due to an insufficient pool of talent to choose from.
Of course, the data skills gap operates as just one part of the wider digital skills gap; a significant problem that is worsening as businesses aim to use new technologies to their advantage but are unable to find the people with sufficient skillsets to harness it.
A 2021 report from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport revealed the extent of the problem for UK businesses. In a survey of 1,045 businesses, it found that nearly half (48%) were recruiting for data roles, and a similar figure were struggling to find candidates to fill the role. The study estimates that there are currently around 250,000 jobs that require hard data skills.
Meanwhile, directing attention to the financial services industry, the UK’s Financial Services Skills Commission(FSSC) recently found that 92% of its member firms had hard-to-fill vacancies in 2021. Moreover, data and analytics roles were the main priority for finance companies in terms of their hiring plans this year.
Data skills across sectors
The FSSC’s research identifies data and analytics as the most coveted area of the skills gap that financial service companies wish to bridge. This should not come as a surprise. Especially when one considers the sheer volume of data that businesses are either required to gather themselves or accessing from third parties, and how data now plays a significant role in the operation of all business departments.
While advanced tech skills are in high demand with vacant data scientist, data analyst, and data engineer roles in desperate need of filling, the importance of instilling, say, a customer experience manager with the relevant data skills has never been clearer. For example, if a company’s complaint handling process required an overhaul, they could evaluate the way previous complaints were analysed. Or perhaps a digital marketing executive wanted to monitor the key performance indicators of a new pay-per-click campaign – the examples are endless.
For financial planners and advisers, an ability to use multiple, disparate data points to help inform the strategies devised for clients is equally important. Being adept in making sense of data is now a critical, cross-functional skill for finance companies.
The fact is, almost every decision-making process within an organisation is data-driven and requires professionals from all departments collecting, extracting, utilising insight from data. Data skills are vitally essential across roles, which is why it is crucial that the gap is bridged.
How do we bridge the gap?
Understandably, the first place to look towards would be higher and further education. But there are issues here.
Indeed, a 2021 report from Wordskills UK found that the number of young people taking IT subjects at GCSE had fallen by 40% with the number taking A Levels, further education courses and apprenticeships all declining. Without an updated curriculum students will continue to leave education lacking the skills that employers need.
Long-term plans to lead young people to tech roles are important, but as mentioned, data has become such a relevant skill for effective decision-making within companies. Therefore, training the existing workforce will be vital.
This can be done by upskilling and reskilling current employees to provide them with better data skills to become more proficient in their current position. Or, of course, hiring external talent. These options rely on talent pathways that provide ways for current or prospective employees to be trained with the relevant skills.
Digital skills bootcamps are a great example of one initiative that is making real progress in this area. For example, with a £7 million grant, West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has piloted over 30 digital bootcamps and trained around 2,000 adults with essential tech skills. Now, £21 million has been made available from the Adult Education Budget to fund the new bootcamps over the next three years, with a target of supporting more than 4,000 people.
Free for the participants and providing clear pathways for companies to either upskill or hire new talent, the bootcamps are led by experienced industry specialists and play a vital role in equipping the workforce – particularly young people – with the hands-on data training
Generation is proud to be one of the specialist skills trainers working with the WMCA to deliver the bootcamps, which include pioneering Data Engineering and Data Analytics programmes that have been purpose designed over the past two years, orientated around industry needs. After the Data Engineering programme was successfully launched in the West Midlands in 2020, it has now expanded and is running in multiple locations across the UK.
The need for diversity
Meanwhile, these programmes present a great opportunity to diversify the talent pool in tech circles. Bridging the data skills gap will require a collective effort, meaning the door to vital training needs to be opened to as many people as possible – regardless of ethnicity, gender, or affluence.
Prospective data skills workers may be put off by the expensive enrolment fees of some training courses. The means there could be a plethora of untapped talent that could potentially plug the skills gap going overlooked.
If employers wish to remain competitive in today’s rapidly evolving digital economy, they must take action and work with training providers to establish easy access pathways for people to develop and exercise new data skills. Diversifying the talent pool and creating more industry-led jobs now is a must, otherwise we will continue to walk into a skills gap crisis.
