Cisco chief says apprentices can plug digital skills gap 

Chief of Cisco UK said more needs to be done to plug the digital skills gap, putting greater focus on early careers.

Speaking to City A.M., David Meads said the apprenticeship levy is a specific area of policy that could be reformed to drive better productivity in the tech sphere, echoing Keir Starmer’s stance earlier this week.

Meads explained that the levy, which was created in 2017, needs to provide greater flexibility, allowing employers to invest more in salaries to attract and retain talent.

 “It is about having a tighter relationship between the private sector and the government,’ Meads said, adding that this is crucial in his work with the Digital Skills Council, which is designed to address the recruitment issues in the UK.

At the recent Labour party conference, Starmer said that his government would replace the current set-up with a new ‘Growth and Skills’ levy, opening the way for firms to spend 50 per cent of their contributions on non-training.

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills revealed earlier this year that 43 per cent of STEM vacancies were hard to fill due to a shortage of applicants, leaving tech skills in even higher demand.

Despite heading up one of the biggest IT firms in the world, Meads warned that we must bust the “myth” that tech talent gaps only impacted tech firms.

Cisco, as a worldwide leader in IT, networking and cybersecurity solutions, has cashed in on the shift to digital in recent years, appearing to buck the downturn seen across many companies.

He told City A.M. that every sector that needs to push forward with digitisation will be impacted by recruitment challenges.

Some estimates have even  suggested the lack of digital skills could cost the economy as much as £63bn a year in potential GDP.