Real world solutions for the digital skills gap
Author: Dr Rachid Hourizi, Director of the Institute of Coding
The Institute of Coding (IoC) was created to respond to the UK’s digital skills gap and since our launch in 2018, we have grown into a large national consortium of educators, employers and outreach groups.
The demand for people to fill roles within the digital technology sector has grown by 150% over the past 4 years and this demand is only set to increase across every industry. To tackle the gap and ensure that this cross-industry demand is met, the IoC is working to encourage a larger and more diverse group of learners into digital careers through higher education. The IoC is also focussed on improving inclusion and diversity in digital education because it is essential to ensuring that the digital sector continues to grow the right way.
Since our launch, the IoC has been providing a new and inclusive approach to digital learning. With our 30+ university partners and education providers, we’ve launched over 100 courses and events in varying formats and engaged over 32,000 learners on these courses. Our courses are formed with input from industry, so our learners know they’re getting the skills employers need, and enable people already in work to gain the digital skills required for their jobs. It’s our hope that by delivering our courses and events in flexible formats, we can make them available to many different people and encourage a larger and more diverse group of learners onto digital skills courses.
We are going to explore this further at our upcoming conference in February. With an overarching focus on lifelong learning, we want to explore how we can make digital skills education as inclusive as possible, so that more people can access education throughout their lives. With contributions from groups including Google, Amazon Web Services and BT Group, the conference is a great way to discover the latest steps being taken towards inclusion in the digital sector. If you’d like to attend, please email ioc@bath.ac.uk and view the programme here.
We’re also looking forward to our other plans for 2020, including the launch of FutureLearn and University of Leeds’ new Digital Skills for the Workplace course collection. This collection features short online courses in essential digital and professional skills, for a more tailored and accessible education experience.
If you or someone you know would like to join 32,000 other learners and start your digital skills journey today, you can view all of our partners’ courses on our course catalogue. If you would like to get in touch with us to discuss potential collaborations, please email IoC@bath.ac.uk.
