The Industry’s Short-Termism Won’t Fix the Digital Skills Gap

As we face the dawn of web3 and the metaverse looms ever closer, one thing is certain: digital has completely transformed our industry and it shows no signs of slowing down. 

Progress is happening on an exponential scale and what we’re seeing is a shortfall of talent to fill the numerous roles available due to often outdated skills. It’s not wholly surprising as many traditional educational spaces haven’t caught up with the latest technological advancements and are also often unaware of the variety of roles available in the digital space. Without intervention, this issue will continue to grow, creating a chasm in the industry as digital advances at lightning speed. 

Matt Sullivan, MD at BIMA - the UK’s digital and tech trade body - says, “Talk to anyone in the industry, and you’ll hear that digital is flying and the pandemic fast tracked it because there was a knee jerk reaction for digital transformation, ecommerce and social commerce. Clients were demanding an evolution, whereas training and recruitment wasn't able to keep up. That's the biggest problem. All of a sudden budgets shifted in the space of months, but you can't suddenly retrain a whole workforce and recruit people in the space of months so we’re now in a race trying to keep up.”

“At the moment, the industry is using a lot of short-term solutions to ‘fix’ this because we need to act fast to meet demand,” he notes. “But if we just carry on this way then it will never get fixed. We need to come together as a community and as an industry to look at the long-term. That's what BIMA has been focusing on with things like Digital Day.”

Digital Day is an annual event that helps boost young people’s interest in digital by raising awareness among schools, universities and local authorities. “A lot of what we do is less about what needs to be done today because agencies can do that themselves,” Matt says, “so it’s more about supporting a long-term solution by raising awareness and providing education to students.”

So with digital advancing and creating lots of job roles, we need the talent trained up to fill it. But that’s not the only challenge standing in the industry’s way. “There is still a discrepancy in the gap between what students think a job in digital is vs what it actually is by the time they’re ready to enter it,” Matt reveals.

“If you go into secondary schools, they just think it's coding. There's also a big gender split with boys more likely to pursue it than girls. Then you get to university where people are studying things like user experience and service design which is closer to what the industry needs, but the softer skills needed to work in the industry can be taught through work experience placements or similar platforms to Digital Day.”

Matthew Desmier, business engagement manager for Bournemouth University and member of BIMA, has worked closely with agencies across the whole spectrum of advertising, creative and digital sectors for the past two decades. “In recent years, the growing skills gap has become more and more apparent,” he says. “Mentoring as a solution to this is completely underrated - especially structured mentoring. Mentors need training and mentees need to be encouraged to be mentored. BIMA offers a brilliant programme to its members and I’d like to see more agencies take up the offer.”

Although it predominantly worked with schools in the past, BIMA is now also partnering with universities to help students get work experience with agencies and bridge the gap between education and the workforce. “We match them up and talk to them about what it's like to actually work in the industry as opposed to just how to develop skills as universities will teach them that,” Matt adds, “but they don't really get any insight as to what it's like to work in the industry and within the culture.”

BIMA community lead for the South, and lecturer in game design and digital media at the University of Greenwich, Ann Longley comments: "BIMA provides fantastic opportunities for university members to access cutting edge industry perspectives and build relationships that boost their education and may lead to employability. Several of our Greenwich University students attended BIMA Beyond this year, gaining relevant knowledge and insights which augments what they learn in the lecture halls and labs. For one student, the content of her final year project was shaped by attending the event.”

The Future Of Digital

Looking ahead, BIMA is focused on providing more support to help close the current skills gap.

“BIMA is going to be rolling out mentoring to university students in their final year focusing on supporting them to gain employment in the industry,” Ann shares. “The first cohort will start in Jan 2023 and is a service that students have themselves requested. I have no doubt it will prove to be invaluable by helping final year students navigate the industry and find their place. BIMA has a very generous community with no shortage of members willing to step forward to help others progress.”

And the focus on where the industry sources talent is evolving too. Paul Davenport, a secondary school teacher and Digital Day advisor says, “From my perspective of working with autistic and neurodiverse people, their talents and skills are often overlooked, yet neurodiverse people make up roughly 20% of the industry - according to a 2019 BIMA study.”

“Making workplaces within the digital industry more aware, tolerant and flexible to meet the bespoke needs of those with neurodiversity could open the door to those who previously were not able to contemplate a career in digital. More companies need to work with schools, colleges and local authorities to help bring these people in and break down the barriers to joining the workplace.” 

There are a number of ways this can be achieved, Paul explains: “This could be by having a different set of recruitment processes for autistic people, who may struggle with interview questions where the unwritten rules of social communication and interaction play a big part, but given an opportunity to carry out a practical task, shine. Or it could be by providing a detailed breakdown of the workplace, tasks and expectations, in short simple language, that once secure, the employee will follow diligently and to the letter. It could be by removing the expectation that someone has to make eye contact when talking to another person, after all, how important is that really?! There are many simple ways that industry can, if they commit to it, make the digital workplace a place where the neuro-diverse can thrive and succeed.”

Another area BIMA is tackling is with students’ parents. “We're launching some parents' evenings because we inspire kids with Digital Day and then they go home and their parents don’t know what they’re talking about and tell them it doesn’t sound like a proper job,” Matt states. “So we need to start to educate the parents as well because they heavily influence the children's decisions.”

With a multi-pronged approach and intimate understanding of the challenges facing the digital industry, BIMA’s efforts in reaching out directly to students to tackle the skills gap at the source creates a promising outlook. 

If you’re a local agency in the UK that has been inspired to address the digital skills gap with long-term solutions, please reach out to BIMA to discuss how you can help support the industry and digital talent of the future.