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DIGITAL

Driving the development of digital skills is a strategic priority for the College and the city.

The College’s Strategic Intent to become a cloud and digital-first college – maximising the use and benefits of technologies to reimagine curriculum and services – has been realised through the achievement of a number of key milestones, including achieving Google Reference College accolade in 2022, achieving AWS academy status in 2024 and being awarded the prestigious Beacon Award for Digital Technology in 2025.

Driving digital equity

Our continuing goal is to drive further digital equity and innovation across our curriculum and communities.

The CBI identified in 2019 that we were in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, driven by technologies such as AI, automation and biotechnology. Providing our communities with access to, and training in, these future skills is essential for digital equity and prosperity with estimates suggesting more than three quarters of all jobs globally will require some element of digital skills by 2030.

However, Skills England recently identified that digital and computing occupations in the UK face significant shortages which were more likely to be due to skills (81%) than they were across all occupations (63%).

While rapid advances in AI will increase productivity and create new high value jobs, digital skills will be the basis of this adoption and will be essential to provide an opportunity for a wider range of people to benefit from digital jobs.

Nationally, the UK is making significant strides regarding essential digital skills with data from 2024 indicating that 8.6 million more people have the highest digital capability since 2020.

At the same time, the number of people digitally disengaged has steadily decreased with just 3% (1.6 million) people offline. While this is positive, around eight million people (15% of the UK population) still lack the fundamental digital skills for life.

Digital skills and employment challenges

With regard to employment, the data shows that 7.3 million people (18% of the workforce) lack the essential digital skills for work.

When accounting for educational attainment there is significant disparity with only 45% of people without formal qualifications having the essential digital skills for work increasing to 67% for those educated to level 2 – compared to 82% for the UK labour force as a whole.

When assessing this at a regional level, the South West at 79% is 3% lower than the national average – highly likely to be reflective of lower educational attainment.

In addition, 2023 surveys on Advanced Digital Skills from Amazon/Gallop identified that only 11% of UK workers possessed advanced digital skills, 68% of businesses found it difficult to recruit the digital skills they need, and 45% of these say this is due to a shortage of qualified applicants.

These challenges, combined with a growing skills gap, have resulted in local, regional and national plans all highlighting this as a priority sector. The College, already a digital leader, is ideally positioned to meet the skills needed.

In order to meet these priorities there are two core focusses over the next 12 months:

Action: Essential Digital Skills

As part of our Shared Prosperity and Tailored Learning offer, in 2025/26 we will introduce a range of broad digital upskilling provisions to meet skills gaps across core competencies, support improved employment and progression opportunities, and meet core business needs.

Action: Advanced Digital Skills

It is essential that we provide advanced digital skills to enable employers to meet the rapid challenges of new technology adoption. To do this we will deliver in:

  • cyber security – this will include the new BSc in Cyber Security in 2025/26 and shorter, employerfocused courses (bespoke and accredited)
  • data analytics – we will offer the Data Analytics Standard for the first time in 2025/26, deliver industry-focused shorter masterclasses and a new full-time sports analytics course at level 2 and level 3
  • cloud computing – we will embed AWS microcredentials into full-time computing courses and professional courses for Google, Microsoft and Amazon for 2025/26
  • artificial intelligence – in 2025/26 we will deliver short courses on practical implementation and leveraging of AI for business, a Skills Bootcamp on AI and productivity for business and equipping existing learners with AI skills to support knowledge transfer upon progression through tutorial programmes
  • networking and programming – in addition to the existing full-time and higher education offers, the College will develop shorter, employer-focused courses (bespoke and accredited) to support both retraining and upskilling.

Get in touch

Main Campus
City College Plymouth

Kings Road, Devonport, Plymouth, PL1 5QG

Give us a call on: 01752 305300

E-mail us at: info@cityplym.ac.uk