NZ urged to address current - and future - digital skills shortage, now: Report

“We cannot wait, we need to act on the findings of this report, today,” says Victoria MacLennan of the NZ Digital Skills Forum.

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The report lists 10 recommendations in 3 areas to address the digital skills shortage:

Building the talent pipeline

1. Make sure every child is exposed to digital technologies

In the long term, we need to dramatically increase the supply of digitally skilled people in New Zealand. Therefore, the successful introduction of the digital technologies/ hangarau matahiko curriculum is critical. Increased investment should be made to ensure teachers and principals are actively driving the new learning into their schools as quickly as possible.

2. Help all Kiwis to understand the importance of digital skills

The skills issue is not about the tech sector, it is about the future of work. We recommend investment to increase the understanding of the importance of lifelong learning and digital technologies.

3. Increase the numbers studying advanced digital skills

The number of students who study computer science or information technology at a tertiary level needs to increase. A national campaign should be designed to encourage more students into relevant tertiary study.

4. Actively encourage a more diverse group of Kiwis into digital technology

The tech sector is actually very diverse thanks to immigration. Rather than import diversity, we must invest in the untapped potential of our own population. We recommend the development of significant policy approaches and initiatives to increase women, Māori and Pasifika in digital roles. Consideration should be made to applying positive discrimination to incentivise and encourage individuals into computer sciences and information technology courses, in the same way as it is applied for other nationally critical skills, such as medicine.

5. Undertake a programme of constant digital attraction

New Zealand should invest in building its Digital Nation brand and use ongoing digital campaigns to target and attract the best possible talent from abroad. After all, digital people use digital tools to find their next job. We recommend investment into building a database of digital talent looking to come to New Zealand and a programme of constant engagement.

Supporting the transition to work

6. Develop and promote pathways into digital tech roles

As there are multiple pathways into digital roles, these need to be clearly promoted. We recommend investment into updating pathway information and ongoing promotion of the various pathways into digital technology roles including ways to upskill or reskill into in demand areas.

7. Develop a platform to support internships

To help students transition faster into productive employees, most tertiary courses now include work experience and internships. However, this part of the market is fragmented with businesses being approached by multiple education providers. In addition, it is often unclear what to expect from an intern, which can lead to lower rates of participation. It is recommended that a neutral platform is developed to provide a central location for engaging with students looking for internships or work experience. The platform should be used to create consistency in the experience and help employers understand ways to get the best return from different experience levels.

Upskilling and reskilling

8. Develop programmes to support re-entry to work

With less than 30 per cent of the tech workforce being female, significant opportunity exists to improve gender balance and help address the skills shortage. We recommend developing programmes to help women return to the workforce and into digital roles. We recommend extending the pilot Return to IT programme to include support from education providers to help women without digital skills to develop them, so they can return to the workforce in digital roles.

9. Create upskilling programmes for those likely to be hit by automation

The growth in demand for digital skills presents a unique opportunity in that the number and type of roles emerging is broad. Against this backdrop, the Government and tech sector should work together now, to create and pilot programmes specifically targeted at groups within society that may be hit hardest by potential automation of jobs. The focus should be on developing skills that the market will need most, not just on filling education quotas.

10. Educate the market on importance of training and development

The value of investing in training and development of existing staff needs to be promoted explicitly. The Government and industry should consider co-investing in a study on the economic benefits obtained by organisations that develop their digital staff. Successful high profile tech firms who have a policy of ongoing development should be highlighted as exemplars. (Source: New Zealand Digital Skills Forum)

The big picture

The forum surveyed the tech sector in August and September this year to create an evidence-based picture of the skills needed across technology and digital roles. The survey was developed with input from the Department of Internal Affairs which had conducted a similar survey across Government agencies at the end of 2016.

This was complemented with data from the Government IT and Digital Skills survey and the analysis of LinkedIn data of 90,000 New Zealand IT workers and surrounding recruitment trends. The 142 organisations that responded to the Digital Skills Survey employed 17,324 people in total, of which 27 per cent are female. Across these firms, 68 per cent of their employees work in advance digital skill roles, with the main skill group being software developers.

When asked to forecast their future requirements, this sample anticipates an additional 3,248 digitally skilled employees within the next two years. The demand for software developers was very high, alongside data analysts, architects and digital leadership.

The Government survey received feedback from 37 agencies who employ over 80,000 people, of which 23,946 are involved in IT or digital roles. Like the tech sector, 30 per cent of the digital staff were female. The Government respondents also forecast increasing demand for certain digital skills. In the Government, the demand is for digital leadership, data analysts, cybersecurity specialists and architects.

Analysis of the overall demand for different skills versus the growth in demand, found that software developers, web programming and software engineering are the largest demand groups and continue to have strong demand growth. However, some skills such as network administration and storage networks are decreasing in demand. The highest demand growth is for machine learning skills.

Across all three surveys, there is evidence of strong demand for digital skills and significant growth in demand for some of these skills. This is important, as not all skills are growing in demand. There appears to be large numbers of workers currently employed in 'keep the lights on' IT work, such as infrastructure support and network management. While these jobs are important, their demand is reducing.