STUART PATRICK
Recently the BBC revisited a report exploring the rise of the UK’s digital technology industry. Here’s an industry which is growing three times faster than the rest of the economy, pays on average nearly double the UK’s median annual salary and employs more than 1.5 million people across the country. It’s a good news story but it also helps indirectly to highlight some of the biggest current issues that we need to tackle.
Published earlier this year by Tech City UK and Nesta, a UK innovation charity, the report also shows where most of these digital industry jobs are concentrated. Glasgow has the sixth largest cluster and the biggest in Scotland with over 26,000 jobs and a particular emphasis on financial technology, cloud computing and e-commerce. Companies like Bridgeall, Iomart, Morgan Stanley and NVT are all familiar players in Glasgow.
So what more can we learn from the report. Well, first that demand for people to fill digital technology jobs is growing fast. We know that there is a challenge filling posts– industry figures regularly suggest there are as many as 11,000 positons to be filled in the short-term – and its highly likely that one impact of Brexit will be to make that ever more difficult since some companies have been drawing on EU citizens to help fill the gap. It would be helpful to get a better grasp on that.
There is no doubt that the Scottish Government and its skills agency are aware of the problem and have made moves to increase the scope for digital apprenticeships but the shortage of talent was the biggest issue raised in the report and Chamber member feedback in Glasgow confirms that there is still more to be done.
Another lesson is that digital technology vacancies are not just growing in IT companies. The report shows 41% of digital technology jobs are in traditional industries like financial services, healthcare or retail, again something which comes up in member feedback. So it’s not just about the growth of a new industry; it’s the application of new technology in established sectors.
How much could providing the digital talent we need help to tackle our international productivity deficit?
And finally the report does confirm that the largest digital cluster is in London but the biggest concentrations per head are in the likes of Manchester, Reading and Southampton. Digital technology jobs could easily help rebalance our economy.
Stuart Patrick is chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
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