SCOTLAND is suffering from a skills gap in vital areas of the nation’s economy, and more needs to be done to fill that gap, according to one of the country’s leading recruitment specialists.
Speaking exclusively to The National, Mark McFall, Group Managing Director of the Change Recruitment Group, warned the skills gap is currently being filled by talent from abroad.
He called for greater links between education and business to identify how the workforce will shape up in years to come.
McFall is particularly concerned about shortages in the sectors where his group operates: accountancy and finance, business, professional and financial services, and energy and infrastructure.
He said: “If we are going to retain diverse large scale employers and attract more of them to Scotland, we must fill that gap.
“To ensure that we can continue to attract organisations, with the potential to employ thousands to Scotland, we have to address the home-grown talent gap.
“From our standpoint this creates a huge potential for the Scottish economy to look to industry and define and fill those gaps. Any country that offers up challenging and interesting opportunities for people will attract talent – and Scotland does that.
“But how could we do better? There is an evident skills shortage in mid-level and senior technical roles, in financial services and some other established sectors in Scotland, and the problem that creates for the sectors is evident.
“Despite the great work of the numerous Scottish skills enriching initiatives and organisations there is a disconnect between activity to encourage skills growth and those skills we organically produce, through the education system.”
He added: “Much of the good work of Career Ready and Skills Development Scotland is focused on employability, apprenticeships and post-redundancy support, but what we are seeing is that something could be done to focus skills building work on more niche, technical and complex areas of financial services where we could create a world renowned centre of excellence of talent in Scotland.”
McFall suggests that to achieve this aim, more work needs to be done at a higher level to get educators and businesses working more closely together to identify the shape of the workforce.
He explained: “An employable skilled talent pool aligned to workforce needs will help to attract more employers to Scotland, and will help the companies that have already committed to Scotland, and who are struggling to fulfill the roles that they currently have available.
“It’s not simple – to produce a workforce that meets the needs of employers is incredibly hard. But it’s something that has to be done. Building this talent pool will build long term jobs and really solidify the industry in
Scotland.”
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