Digital Skills 2021 Review

It’s our objective to ensure that there are more skilled workers available to Isle of Man businesses, and there are lots of factors to consider, some that are specific to us here on the Island and many that are global.  The demand for digital skills is a global challenge, here in the Isle of Man the digital sector is growing rapidly and there is accelerating digital transformation in every sector and area of life.  For our people to thrive in a connected economy and society, digital skills must be prioritised alongside literacy and numeracy skills as they are now a key life skill.  It is dizzying how quickly our 4^th industrial revolution is changing our daily lives both in and out of work.

Digital Isle of Man wants to work with industry, other government departments and third sector organisations, as well as encouraging our whole community, to understand the Digital Skills gap and creatively work together to minimise impact – allowing more of us and our economy to thrive.

In 2021 we worked closely with the Economic Recovery Group ‘Our People’ workstream to develop a Digital Literacy training programme.  It is aimed at supporting the development, initially, of beginner to intermediate digital skills for Isle of Man residents.  Whether people are at the beginning of their career, looking to upskill into a new direction, currently not working or looking to test skills and add a new certificate to their CV - we hope they will find the many hours of training material in the two learning paths useful.  It is an online training programme, broken down into learning paths, courses and modules, with short videos for each section. That means it can be done at any time and people can take as long as they need to go through it all, as it keeps track of your progress.

For next year we will work hard to make sure we reach as many people as possible to get all 600 free training places utilised.  We will continue working with the Locate Isle of Man team and feeding in industry requirements to deliver a targeted campaign to attract more digitally skilled workers to the Island. Looking at the longer term we want to inspire the next generation into STEM careers so will develop an online hub where we can gather all resources and inspiring sources into one place and also importantly we will look at incentivisation options and increasing provision of innovative options like bootcamps.

Sarah Ennett- Project Manager Digital Skills, Digital Isle of Man