AI is coming | We need to future-proof our staff

When Amazon published a list detailing the top 10 jobs of the future using AI, it became clear that we don’t have the skills needed in our workforce to prepare for them.

This is worrying because in the next five years, there will be a 40% increase in jobs requiring computer science, machine learning or AI skills.

But who will be writing the codes or manning these machines? The country’s future employees are right now sitting in a classroom and they are not learning computer science as it’s not on the curriculum - despite the fact that over two-thirds of secondary school teachers believe computer science education better prepares students for future careers across all industries.

Just under 50% of students surveyed didn’t really know what jobs they could do in the future that involve AI, and one in three secondary school children had only heard of AI in science fiction movies and literature.

Khyati Sundaram, CEO of skills-based hiring platform Applied, says: “To close the UK’s digital skills gap and empower the next generation of tech talent, we must first make lessons in computer science and AI more accessible to young people from all backgrounds."