What if everyone in your business had data skills?
Not only would you transform into a data-driven organisation, but you’d also be able to leverage the latest technologies for competitive gain to grow your business, acquire and retain more customers, and become more profitable. Additionally, your employees would feel more valued and be less likely to leave, because you're investing in their professional development with recognised certifications and qualifications that support their career progression.
In today’s business environment, every employee needs data skills to perform their role, not just the specialists, like data scientists and AI engineers. According to the UK Government, "Businesses need more information management skills, knowledge of emerging technologies and solutions, data communication skills, and database management skills." Oxford College warns that by 2030, a fifth of the UK workforce will be significantly underskilled for their jobs.
What’s Causing the Digital Skills Gap
Nearly half (46%) of businesses are struggling to recruit for roles due to a lack of digital skills - and it’s costing the UK economy £62 billion per year. It happens due to a:
Lack of people: the availability of specialist data skills in the UK is not sufficient to meet demand - to keep pace, universities need to produce at least 17x more graduates.
Lack of training: nearly 3 in 5 (58%) employees claim to have received no training to help improve their digital skills.
Lack of funding: just under a third (29%) of employers highlight cost as one of the biggest barriers to data skills training.
Lack of time: nearly a third (28%) of employees say they simply don’t have the time to upskill, despite digital skills being crucial to their future job prospects.
Failing to invest in training is going to cost you wasted time, money and effort.
Wasted time: knowledge workers waste 10% of their time due to a lack of data skills - equivalent to 14.3 hours per week.
Wasted money: businesses can lose 15-25% of their annual revenue fixing errors caused by poor data quality.
Increased effort: nearly three-quarters (72%) of organisations say the skills shortage increases the workload for other staff.
Upskill Your Team to be Data Citizens
Today, 9 in 10 business leaders believe their organisation has significant digital skills gaps, and 7 in 10 are struggling to recruit employees with sufficient skills. So how do you build the case for upskilling your existing team?
There are several benefits of upskilling your employees, including:
- Boosts employee productivity, which increases company profitability
- Reduces employee turnover, which increases employee retention
- Encourages continuous learning, which improves your reputation
Let’s look at each of these in turn.
Boosts Employee Productivity, Which Increases Company Profitability
Alarmingly, over three-quarters (77%) of employees are disengaged at work, which has the potential to cost you a fifth of their annual salary. These people are simply going through the motions to ensure they pick up their pay cheque at the end of each month.
However, by re-engaging employees, your business could become 22% more profitable.
Why?
Engaged employees are committed to their role. They believe in the company vision, and most importantly, understand the role they play to make it a reality. Invest in data skills for your team, and it can have a domino effect across your business. For example, when three-quarters of organisations report data quality issues affect their operating costs, your team will possess the skills to identify inaccurate, incomplete, duplicated, and outdated data, as well as know how to improve that data.
Additionally, your employees will know how to understand and interpret data themselves. This means they can analyse data to understand customer behaviour and preferences, which enables them to target customers with personalised experiences that lead to increased customer satisfaction.
Reduces Employee Turnover, Which Increases Employee Retention
According to the Chartered Institute for Professional Development, 6-9 million employees are less than enthusiastic about their work, feel negative about the value they deliver, and see their job as purely transactional, which means they won’t hesitate to leave if someone offers them more money.
However, companies that invest heavily in learning and development (L&D) experience 24% higher profit margins.
Why?
According to some experts, the total cost to hire an employee could be 3-4x their annual salary, and 17.6% will leave within the first 12 months. To avoid this wasted investment, it can be more effective to look at nurturing your existing talent. Across all industries, 90% of employees want to improve their data skills. By upskilling your internal teams, your investment in L&D is safer because you know the people. And because you’re investing in training, your employees feel more appreciated, which increases engagement, and as we know, engaged workers are more productive and create a more profitable business.
Encourages Continuous Learning, Which Improves Your Reputation
One industry study concluded that while 82% of UK workers have some essential digital skills, two million employees (6%) couldn’t complete any of the 20 tasks set, and seven million employees (18%) could only do 1-9 tasks.
Yet businesses with higher data literacy rates can increase their enterprise value by 3% to 5%.
Why?
These organisations understand that people are their most valuable asset to grow the business, and by investing in their people, they invest in their future. For the new generation now entering the workforce, 1 in 3 (37%) are worried they do not have the digital skills to get a good job, and 70% are actively looking for an employer who will invest in their skills.
By showing you care about the people in your organisation and are prepared to invest in their success (rather than simply grow your bottom line), your business becomes more attractive to future talent, customers, and investors.
Why Apprenticeships are the Best Way to Upskill Your Team
McKinsey says, “Apprenticing offers hands-on learning to demystify change and role modelling to demonstrate hard-to-teach skills, such as problem-solving mindsets.” While a staggering 83% of employers have recommended the value of apprentices to other businesses as a powerful tool for organisational growth.
At Cambridge Spark, we set the gold standard in apprenticeships, with our learners achieving amazing results.
Our approach works so well because we map your training outcomes to skills gaps across every function in your business. Training is delivered via live lectures, workshops, and self-paced e-learning. And learners are supported for the duration of their programme by our expert lecturers, technical mentors and professionally trained coaches.
One data apprentice can create real business impact
Build the Data Fluency of Your Workforce
Our Data Citizen Apprenticeship (L3) will help your team to master the essential mindset, tools and skills to thrive in a data-driven organisation. The curriculum offers a great introduction for all learners on the value of data, data concepts, tools, processes, and vocabulary, and the importance of data storage, compliance and security.
With the basics in place, we move on to explore data preparation, quality and validation, data analysis, and an introduction to coding with Python.
Finally, we consider how to share data and action insights using charts and visualisation, dashboarding tools, storytelling and presentation skills.
Realise Immediate Value with Off-the-Job Training
As part of an apprenticeship, your team will participate in ‘off-the-job training’, which is learning that is undertaken outside of their day-to-day work duties but during their normal working hours. We expect a minimum of 6 hours off-the-job training per week, because it gives learners sufficient time to focus and develop their digital skills, knowledge and behaviours to successfully complete the programme.
Take Advantage of Available Funding for Data Apprenticeships
Under the UK Apprenticeship Levy, all organisations with staff costs over £3 million must pay 0.5% of their salary bill into a ring-fenced Apprenticeship Levy pot. The money is collected monthly by PAYE and used for training on approved apprenticeship schemes. This means there is no cost for levy-paying employers to train apprentices.
Build Your Data Skills With Cambridge Spark
We can help equip your entire workforce with digital, data, and AI skills - from entry-level literacy through to technical specialists in fields like AI transformation, digital products, and data engineering.
Data literacy is a key skill to develop in 2025, and through our Data Citizen Apprenticeship (L3) your employees will gain skills to create a real impact - streamlining processes, improving decision-making, and driving your organisation’s growth in a data-driven world.