CWJobs at DIGITExpo 2019

Earlier this month, CWJobs’ Commercial Director Dominic Harvey spoke at DIGITExpo, Scotland’s biggest IT and digital showcase. This year’s event was held in Edinburgh and saw over 1,500 delegates attend the event, which included 60 exhibitors and more than 40 speakers.

DIGITExpo is the largest annual enterprise technology event in Scotland, and is a must-attend event for senior technologists, digital innovators and IT leaders. This year, the expo had exhibitions from companies like Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard and Lenovo and saw talks from Rolls Royce, Microsoft and Amazon to name a few. Topics covered included cyber security, networking, infrastructure, data analytics and cloud services.

Dominic Harvey spoke about the importance of tech skills outside of the IT industry. Let’s take a closer look at some of the key themes from his talk:

The challenges facing the UK’s tech sector

The first challenge that Dominic outlined was how to attract new talent into the industry. He shared the statistic that over 70% of UK employers are experiencing a technical skills shortage and that recruiters can embrace the latest technology to help close the gap. He said:

‘‘It’s vital that recruiters understand the motivations and feelings of the people working in tech in order to ensure their employer brand and job opportunities truly resonate with this audience.’’

He also spoke about the challenge that companies face in retaining skilled staff. CWJobs’ Confidence Index finds that 85% of tech workers would consider moving for the right role. This figure is even higher among the younger generation, something that could be attributed to a lower degree of personal ties.

The third big challenge facing the UK’s tech sector is the current low unemployment rate, which is at the lowest since the 1970s. In fact, employment has risen by 15% in the last 5 years.

Recognising the value of tech skills

Now more than ever, companies are clamouring for candidates with the skills that can help them transform their business. Dominic shared a statistic from our Confidence Index report, which reveals that eight out of ten IT decision makers say that having a tech specialism is an important factor in hiring decisions across any sector.

Overall, four in five business leaders from all sectors say that cyber security skills are important to their business. Dominic reiterated that cyber attacks could cost the UK economy £1 billion per year. He referenced some recent attacks on large companies, including the Marriott data breach and the British Airways cyber attack that resulted in a £183 million fine.

From an education perspective, he shared the statistic that seven in ten business leaders believe that teaching kids tech skills is now more important than maths and science. Improved problem-solving, fostering collaboration and promoting creativity are cited as the principal reasons.

Download your copy of our report to get the full insights

How companies can inspire the next generation of tech workers

Our Confidence Index report finds that the majority of business leaders would partner with a school or college to inspire students to join tech. But as the current school curriculum isn’t offering students the right tools to start their journey in technology, how can educational institutions and businesses bridge the gap?

In his talk, Dominic provides the example of BT’s Skills for Tomorrow initiative, which aims to equip kids, as well as their parents and teachers with the tech skills they need. The programme will give 5 million kids the tech skills they need and help them be ready for the future.

For most businesses, promoting diversity and inclusion in their tech teams has been a key priority for a while. Despite this, only 5% of IT leadership positions are held by women and only 17% of female employees work in IT roles.

CWJobs’ own efforts to improve these statistics include using Artificial Intelligence to remove bias in the recruitment process and recommend highly relevant and active candidates before they’ve applied. Speaking about this in more detail, Dominic said:

‘‘Our new candidate recommender algorithm has been trained by observing real recruiters. Using this new algorithm, we’re able to recommend relevant candidates to recruiters, so that they can invite them to apply for the jobs we’ve matched them to, using a bespoke email template. And with real recruiters interacting with these recommended candidates, the AI continues to learn and recommend the best talent for our customers jobs.

The results have been beyond our expectations, with 94% of candidates being invited to apply for roles and 16% completing an application.’’

Scotland’s growth as a tech hub

Overall, this year’s DIGITExpo was a great success and Edinburgh provided the perfect location to host the event. The city has a highly skilled tech workforce and is now the largest technology hub outside of London.

The tech sector in Edinburgh has increased by 43.4% in the last five years and employs around 80,000 people, contributing around £4 billion to the economy.

The city has had many tech success stories, with companies like Skyscanner and Fanduel having achieved ‘unicorn’ status. Edinburgh is also home to CodeBase, the UK’s largest tech incubator.