Digital skills shortages to continue in 2019

The digital skills crisis shows no sign of abating – in fact, a recent research from Infosys suggests it’s going to get worse before it gets better. In this blog, we take a look at the key points to emerge from this research in order to identify some of the major areas that will be impacted in 2019.

Data analytics

Businesses are failing to make the most out of their data due to a lack of analytics skills. In fact, data scientists and analysts are increasingly recognised as some of the most difficult roles to recruit and retain.

The report found that a significant proportion of businesses say they are failing to utilise data analytics properly due to a dearth of properly-trained staff.

Nearly half (44%) of the thousand respondents to the survey said that their business struggles to integrate multiple data sets from a variety of sources, whilst 43% reported that their teams lacked understanding in deploying the correct analytics techniques.

All of this is stopping businesses from using the right analytics tools and services to get the most from their data, highlighting a need for proper training and recruitment processes. And ultimately, it’s preventing many businesses from harnessing the very real benefits that analytics can deliver, including enhancing processes, improving the customer experiences and helping to develop new business models.

Cybersecurity

Everywhere you look, reports and research confirm a shortfall in cybersecurity professionals. For instance ISACA (a global IT governance association) claims that almost three in five (59%) organisations have unfilled cyber or information security positions. To add to their difficulties, more than half (54%) say that it takes three months or more to fill such a position.

Elsewhere, Capgemini Digital Transformation Institute found that of the skills required by businesses to support digital transformation, cybersecurity skills are most in demand, but with the least internal supply. Almost 70% of the organisations polled claimed they were in need of cybersecurity skills, but only 43% claimed such skills were already present in the company.

And looking further forward, figures from the Global Information Security Workforce study indicate there could be around 100,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the UK by 2022.

Digital transformation

Research from the Cloud Industry Forum and BT suggests that skills shortages are the main barrier to digital transformation in large enterprises.

Very few organisations believe they are significantly ahead of their competitors in terms of the adoption of next generation technologies, which indicates that many are struggling to adapt to the digital revolution. And skills shortages sit at the heart of this issue, with enterprises significantly more likely to report facing skills shortages than their smaller counterparts.

In addition to the analytics and cyber security shortfalls mentioned above, other key areas where skills issues are problematic include:

• Managing a hybrid mix of public and private cloud workloads
• Integration
• Migration.

Exploiting emerging technologies

Recent Deloitte research claims that whilst two in five businesses have invested in AI technology, less than one in four say that their leadership team has a clear understanding of the technology and how it will impact their business.

And similar concerns exist for other areas of focus including IoT, robotic and cognitive automation, and blockchain.

Ultimately, just 16% of businesses believe their talent pool has enough knowledge and expertise to deliver their digital strategy.

These concerns are also echoed in the Cloud Industry Forum and BT report, where 74% of enterprises claimed to either have a digital transformation strategy or are currently implementing one. However, over half (54%) of the respondents expressed doubts that they had the appropriate skills needed to achieve a successful transformation.