UK Digital Strategy: Tech Sector Reacts To Government’s Plans To Target AI And Stem Digital Skills Gap

Matt Walmsley, EMEA Director, Vectra Networks

“Faced with a nation-wide and growing cyber skills shortage, we welcome the government’s commitment to research and investment in AI and cyber skills training. The skills shortage plaguing the cybersecurity workforce is easily the greatest threat to the country’s internet security.

“What’s more, as the number and complexity of threats grows, humans will simply be unable to handle the sheer weight of the workload by themselves. By combining a strategy of AI research and cyber education, the government is taking a strong approach to tackling the skills gap.

“By embracing AI and machine learning technologies that automate laborious and time-consuming processes, staff will be free to focus on the highest priority tasks. Only by augmenting human capabilities with intelligent technologies will the UK be able to carve its path as a cybersecurity leader.”

George Brasher, MD UK&I, HP

“HP is proud to support the Government’s Digital strategy and to be part of the Digital Skills Partnership. The STEM worker shortfall is estimated to be at 40,000 each year in the UK and with more jobs being created to meet the shifting demands of the digital economy, this gap is widening.

“The UK’s digital sector is critical for growth, innovation and productivity. The Government’s digital strategy, designed to offer digital skills to a wider audience, will help businesses and charities make greater strides towards narrowing the skills gap and gaining a competitive advantage.

“We believe we have a responsibility to partner with government, teachers, parents, pupils and other industry leaders to enhance digital learning and close the knowledge gap. Today’s announcement will help build on the UK’s digital foundations and make our country one of the most dynamic and supportive places to develop and grow a digital business.”

Paul Shannon, CEO, ANS Group

“We fully support the government’s commitment to developing digital skills. There is a high demand for these skills among many businesses, which will only become more central in the future.

“Investing in education and encouraging more businesses to work closely with young people is definitely a step in the right direction, and will provide the younger generations with the knowledge they need to thrive in an increasingly digitally-focused job market.”

Daniel Hegarty, CEO and Founder, Habito

“AI and Robotics are already having material impact on the way we make and consume. With the UK’s rich seam of engineering talent and emerging tech infrastructure, we are well placed to emerge as a global leader in this space. While the Government’s Digital Strategy is a vital first step forward in recognising the appetite for change, with a £17.3m boost, innovation is already happening at a rapid pace.

“Automation, robots, and machine learning are creating minor revolutions across almost every industry. Whilst we’re now only just scratching the surface of the quality of experience AI can provide, we can expect to see the pace of change being to accelerate in 2017. We are entering a new, technology-enabled world, one that will create a more reliable, efficient world for Britons – if we let it.”

Pierre Hall, Solutions Director at Computacenter

“The UK’s Digital Strategy, announced today, rightly recognises that a thriving digital economy is critical to our economic growth. Digital technologies also underpin the transformation we’re seeing amongst our customers across many sectors of the economy, driving productivity and efficiency through smart use of tech. We particularly welcome measures in the strategy that look to tackle the worrying digital skills-gap, including the new Digital Skills Partnership.

“We look forward to working closely with Government to ensure the UK has the rights market conditions for British companies to thrive, create jobs and drive growth.”

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Sam Pudwell

Sam Pudwell joined Silicon UK as a reporter in December 2016. As well as being the resident Cloud aficionado, he covers areas such as cyber security, government IT and sports technology, with the aim of going to as many events as possible.

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  • Great news that the UK government has its Digital Strategy in place. We need to preserve and build upon the British lead in technology innovation. And, picking up on Mark Cresswell’s statement that currently 70% of the worlds transactions are processed by mainframe apps but this is likely to change, I just wanted to agree. It is indeed true that the mainframe is responsible for a large % of the worlds transactions and our research shows that it will change – it will increase. Compuware research found 88% of CIOs expect the mainframe to remain a key business asset over the next decade. On top of that a recent research by Forrester shows 96% of new business initiatives involve the mainframe for both systems of record and systems of engagement. The digitisation of business is increasing the transaction throughputs of the mainframe exponentially. There is clearly a future for the mainframe platform, but it needs to be said that there is a need to modernise mainframe culture, tools and processes as the Baby Boomers retire and create a skills gap for the mainframe platform. The same Forrester Consulting research shows that 91% of app dev professionals leverage DevOps but only 34% leverage it across the enterprise. There is a big potential gain here as DevOps helps shorten development and delivery cycles, increase response times and improve collaboration between silo’s. There’s no practical reason that restricts agile development on the mainframe, as code is code – whether Java or COBOL. The roadblocks to agile delivery on the mainframe are cultural, rather than technical – so they must be tackled as such, through clear leadership and a strategic vision for IT. Companies need to break down the barriers that separate their development teams and enable developers to use modern tools and processes across the entire IT stack, bringing the mainframe into the fold of mainstream IT.

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