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Reducing the financial skills gaps with T-Levels

15th Mar 2017
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Last week’s Budget saw one of the most drastic shake ups of the vocational careers system in a generation, and was a welcomed move by many.

‘T-Levels’ are planned to be introduced in the autumn, these are technical qualifications providing skills based courses on accounting and finance, digital, manufacturing, business, hospitality, construction and social care.

The development will no doubt improve the acute skills gaps within these professions, and it’s particularly encouraging that accountancy and finance will be included.

This grassroots investment is much needed, as the industry is keen to develop the entry routes into the profession to encourage talent from all areas of the education system. Only this month, leading industry body ACCA launched its first apprenticeship scheme to encourage SMEs to lead successful apprentices through their practices or business. This scheme joins others already available within the credit and payroll professions, with apprenticeships already being offered by the Chartered Institute of Credit Management and the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals.

In addition, there was welcome news for those already within the workforce in terms of re-skilling to support a generation of workers at risk of job automation. The Chancellor announced the Department of Education will invest £40million in pilot schemes to support building digital skills into our workforce.

It is correct that now is the time to tackle the skills chasm in the UK jobs market head-on. At Hays we have consistently warned of a widening skills gap across the country as employers tell us they are struggling to match the vacancies they have with the available workforce.

We need to be promoting the job opportunities in the sector to the next generation – helping them to understand the career paths and the rewards on offer. The sector is optimistic, our latest Hays UK Salary & Recruiting Trends Guide 2017 indicated 93% of finance employers expect their business activity to remain the same or increase in 2017. However, there’s a lack of talent available as 43% of organisations said they did not have the talent to achieve their current business objectives in 2017.

T Levels are an excellent opportunity to generate a coherent dialogue between business and schools, and if organised properly, they will help address any future skills shortages. By ensuring robust qualifications and measurable targets are in place, T Levels will equip the younger generation with vocational careers, demonstrating a programme that has been developed specifically with employers in mind.

The introduction of T-Levels to a younger and digitally-minded generation will hopefully combine an education in financial skills with digital capabilities that already exist. This way the initiative can become a two way partnership, as businesses work with the younger generation to share knowledge.

It’s a pertinent time for change, thanks to ongoing business development, corporate deals, growth and a number of companies relocating, the demand for a wide range of financial skills looks set to stay high for the foreseeable future.

Part-qualified and qualified accountants are currently in high demand by organisations, alongside professionals in audit, risk, credit management and payroll. Additionally, at 28%, finance skills were cited as one of the top three skills most needed by organisations to achieve their business objectives this year.

It’s clear that there are short and long term fixes which need to be addressed and it is vital that we tackle these now if we are to close the gaps and make sure we have the professionals in place who can start to make headway as a leading workforce with a vast amount of talented finance professionals.  

T Levels present a golden opportunity for the UK to develop a well-trained and highly skilled domestic workforce that will see Britain’s accountancy and finance industry primed to challenge successfully on a global level.

For more information on Hays Accounting & Finance, visit hays.co.uk/accountancy

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By dumdum
15th Mar 2017 22:39

interesting perspective on building younger generation to acquire skills for the future, but these also needs to be supported by jobs in future, the rate of outsourcing of work to lower salary economies will leave not many jobs for people in UK here, companies are hiring young talent to displace skilled/expensive resources but this is shifting problem from one age group to other, what about upskilling the experience working class who are still expected to work for next 20-30 yrs?

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