Page 36 - Regional Employment & Skills Plan

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The industry also employs highly qualified workers; ‘Tech industry workers tend to be much more highly educated than other workers and in 2015 62% of workers held some form of HE qualification.’74
The largest sector within the UK tech economy is the software and services sector which accounts for a total of 63% of the employment within the ICT industries.
The ICT sector in Wales is proportionately smaller than that of the rest of the UK with the Welsh ICT industry accounting for just 2% of the UK’s ICT economy, compared with 4% of the whole economy. The Welsh Government utilises a different definition for the ICT sector which does not include the software element.
Skills Challenges
The knowledge intensive nature of the ICT sector raises a number of skills challenges. To attempt to address these challenges localised research work to identify challenges was undertaken by the Swansea Bay City Region skills group and the RLSP.75 This research identified that there were a number of different challenges faced by individuals who wished to pursue a career within the ICT sector and that barriers existed for companies to recruit talented individuals.
Drivers of Change/Demand 76
• Digital by default,
• Cloud and remote computing,
• Super and Ultrafast broadband technologies,
• Cyber security,
• Process automation, including the automation of knowledge work,
• Multi platform technologies,
• Gaming.
Regional skills challenges include: 77
• Programming languages/coding,
• Dynamic database skills including SQL Server,
• Web development including HTML and PHP,
• Cyber security skills,
• Visualisation,
• Network engineers.
Swansea Bay City Region
The ICT sector has been identified as a key economic driver for the region by the Swansea Bay City Region and forms the basis for the city deal proposal entitled ‘The Internet Coast’ which is being developed with the UK treasury. This includes the development of a number of themes based around utilising connectivity as a driver of economic growth and include the internet of energy, the internet of health and wellbeing and the internet of economic acceleration. Swansea University had the greatest number of 4* (International Significance) Computer Science submissions in Wales in the 2014 REF, is building the Computational Foundry on the Bay Campus.
74 https://www.thetechpartnership.com/globalassets/pdfs/research-2016/datasheet_techindustry_march16.pdf 75 http://www.rlp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/SBCR-ICT-Report-January-2016.pdf
76 http://www.rlp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/SBCR-ICT-Report-January-2016.pdf
77 http://www.rlp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/SBCR-ICT-Report-January-2016.pdf
Regional Employment & Skills Plan South West & Mid Wales Aspirational Economy