Talent - ScotlandIS

Community development and sectoral growth can only be supported and maintained by having the right skills available in sufficient numbers.

As part of the Data Driven Innovation initiative, the University of Edinburgh will play a pivotal role in strengthening our graduates’ skills. Over a decade, the university and its partners will train 100,000 people in the application of data across major sectors, ensuring Scotland has a future-proof workforce who are ready to face any challenge. A key component to this is the university’s School of Informatics, the largest European centre of its kind with over 450 academic and research staff and 850 students. It has a strong talent pool, educating undergraduate and postgraduate students via a wide range of courses including artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computational linguistics, computer science and software engineering.

Our digital technologies industry has a highly skilled workforce but we need many more people to join the growing businesses across the sector. Encouraging an increasing number to pursue careers in technology is essential.

ScotlandIS leads the campaign for skills for our industry, helping to build the future talent pipeline. Working with partners across industry and the public sector we have helped with the development of the ICT & Digital Technologies Skills Investment Plan, published in 2014. This provides a long-term plan to tackle a number of key issues:

Working with partners across industry and the public sector we have helped with the development of the ICT & Digital Technologies Skills Investment Plan, published in 2014. This provides a long-term plan to tackle a number of key issues:

Sector attractiveness – to promote the breadth of interesting highly paid roles to young people, and career changers
Ensuring the education system meets industries needs including:
Revitalising the teaching of computing and digital technologies at schools, to develop a stronger pipeline of young people choosing digital technologies careers, and courses at apprentice, college and university level.
Delivering the e-Placement Scotland programme in partnership with our universities to give students valuable real work experience before they qualify
Ensuring the development of high-level specialist skills through our work with innovation centres such as DataLab
Broadening access routes into the industry through a wider range of apprenticeships, and new initiatives such as the new digital skills academy, CodeClan established by ScotlandIS.
Tackling the gender imbalance
A multicultural workforce

The digital technologies industry is truly global, serving markets around the world. To design and build products and services for global citizens and businesses our industry benefits from a diverse workforce.

ScotlandIS Initiatives and projects

ePlacement Scotland has created over 1,800 placement opportunities. Set up in 2010, the programme matches firms in the technology sector with students and helps to address the skills shortage in the sector and improve student employability.

CodeClan plays a leading role in accelerating Scotland’s progress in building a high-performing digital economy. Its role is to retrain and reskill ambitious and motivated people to enter the digital world

Digital Xtra Fund is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) that supports the delivery of extra-curricular computing and digital activities to young people, aged 16 and under, across Scotland. It specifically seeks to improve participation of girls and underrepresented groups in digital, dispel negative perceptions about computing science and promote digital as an attractive career path.

To meet the increasing demand for people with world class skills in computing and the pace of change within the industry, it is essential that our colleges and universities ensure college leavers and graduates have the right blend of technical and interpersonal skills for the modern workforce.