Skills shortage holds back growth potential of creative industries

News Article - 30 September 2011
Category: Business

An alarming lack of relevant skills is holding back the UK's creative industries sector, according to the CBI.

The sector, which is said to have impressive growth potential - with the ability to drive the nation's economic recovery - is struggling to find people with the required skills levels.

A report published by the CBI revealed the sector is expected to employ 1.3 million people by 2013, potentially making it larger than the financial services sector.

Susan Anderson, CBI director for education and skills, aid: "Our creative industries have huge growth potential, but the lack of trained people with relevant skills to meet the sector's specialist demands is holding it back.

"First and foremost we must ensure that all young people leave school with a strong grasp of the basics. Solid maths and science ability is particularly vital.

"These companies also expect a more detailed knowledge of IT and benefit from people with broader creative skills, so the Government must adapt the curriculum to meet these needs."

Consequently the CBI has made a number of recommendations outlining areas for improving skills at school and college:

• Ensuring all young people study maths post-16 at a level appropriate to their aptitude;
• Introduce an automatic opt-in to triple science GCSE qualifications for the most able students;
• Include a creative or technical subject within the specification of the English Baccalaureate i.e. design and technology, computer studies, music, art and design or drama;
• Joint promotion of best practice on business-school collaboration - e.g. increased support for the work of Education and Employers Taskforce.

Recruitment and selection has never been more important for creative industries and therefore many HR teams now choose tailored HR software to create vacancies and track the calibre of applicants to ensure positions are filled with new starters that can hit the ground running.

Article keywords: cbi, growth, creative industry, sme, small business

---

A director’s guide: How to choose a payroll software solution

Make mistakes when you're paying staff and you'll quickly realize you have a real problem on your hands. Compared to other areas of your business, payroll is often seen as a purely back office, operational function, something that's 'just there.' The problem with payroll is people only notice it when it goes wrong.
Find out more »

---

More industry news

• Think tank warns UK may have already slipped back into recession
• Growing demand for HR staff in technology and international sectors
• Boosting business growth a ‘priority’ to avoid Eurozone slowdown
• HMRC launches alternative disputes pilot scheme this week
• December employment statistics disregard gloomy recruitment predictions
• Eurozone manufacturing PMI shows modest improvement
• UK scores highly for economic governance by ratings agency
• Government launches two-year project focusing on manufacturing sector
• Burden of regulation on UK businesses ‘too high’

Back to news home page »