Jobs with high-level digital skills to grow by 47 percent: FSO

Jobs that need high-level digital skills are expected to soar by 47 percent in the next five years.

A new Future Skills Organisation (FSO) report, Growing Australia’s digital workforce highlighted that this jump will need more than 420,000 additional digital expert workers through to 2026.

Some of these roles in demand include programmers and analysts.

The report noted that the demand for digital skills in Australia has increased by 12 percent since 2016.

Patrick Kidd CEO at FSO said the insights from the DSO’s successful pilots will be transferred to, and expanded upon, by the new Jobs and Skills Council (JSC) as the FSO.

“The DSO pilot program provided us with data and case studies that contributed to the analysis and findings in this report,” he said.

“Now as we transform to the FSO, as a Jobs and Skills Council, we can use these findings to inform our work across the finance, technology and business sectors in Australia, while recognising digital skills sit right across the Australian economy.”

The report delivered four key insights on digital skills, every person in the workforce now needs to have digital skills, there needs to be a consistent approach to describing the digital skills needed across the economy is required.

The training system must be able to cope with the rapid pace of change in the digital skills needed by job roles and more teachers and trainers are required who can deliver digital training across different qualifications.

The report showed that 50 percent of VET graduates noted the skills they learnt are not relevant to their current job.

Kidd said the increase in demand for digital workers shows “no signs of slowing” with relevant skills and experience desperately needed across Australia’s finance, technology and business sectors.

If current trends persist, the report projects that Australia will have a shortage of nearly 370,000 digital workers in the next three years.

“The future Australian workforce will require digital skills across every industry, and every job," he said.

“The report provides us with the empirical evidence we need to champion digital skilling and reskilling across Australia. I believe that we can create a flexible, robust and innovative VET system that provides opportunities for all Australians to acquire the in-demand skills of tomorrow and to meet industry needs.”