Plugging the skills gap

Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed the lowest unemployment rate across the UK for 48 years, at 3.6 per cent nationwide, and the lowest in the entire UK in the South West at just  2.7 per cent. 

Unemployment is at the lowest level since 1974 – so finding and retaining talent is now the biggest challenge for employers across the UK and particularly in the South West.

Fundamentally, if employers can't find people or staff, then we're going to see a reduced output across the economy, which may mean it falters.

So what can be done to resolve the skills gap?

Government intervention 

We are lucky enough to receive many talented students from overseas, who are seeking higher qualifications from the brilliant universities in the South West. Ideally, these students would be able to complete their studies, and stay in the UK long enough for them to gain work experience and contribute to the local economy. 

However, the visa sponsorship process is currently preventing this from happening. Employers and potential employees alike perceive the sponsorship process to be incredibly cumbersome, so students are leaving once they receive their qualifications. 

When they have completed that course, they only have a two-year working visa, but most employers are of course looking for some longevity in their workforce and want at least three or four years’ service. This is where the government needs to step in and make the process easier for both employers and employees to get sponsorship for skilled labour.

By doing so, they will be able to plug the gap that has prevented the economy from being able to fulfil the potential and the ambition that’s there among the business community.

Local efforts

We’re also seeing British students leave alongside the international students, once they have completed their studies – and that is what we’re hoping to change. Candidates don’t need to go to the big cities to have their dream job, there are some incredible opportunities for candidates here in the South West – plus the beautiful landscape that you can’t get in the big cities!

Many local employers in the South West are pivoting – looking at how they can access talent and responding in as agile a fashion as they can to the current skills shortage. Of course, having more employees spending at least some time in the region provides a welcome boost to the entire local economy. 

Exeter Chamber, for example, runs Coffee in the City – a weekly networking event which is all about getting local businesspeople to move to different locations each week, to try and surface some of the brilliant local independent businesses that people might have forgotten about.

We must work towards making it easier for skilled labour to remain here in the South West for more than a couple of years after graduation, so that we can see the skills shortage reduced, and the economy boosted.