Leadership and creativity are two of the significant employment skills missing in job seekers of the South West

A new study from Barclays LifeSkills shows that the South West is facing a significant skills gap as the public fails to demonstrate core employability skills.

The report set out to uncover: How employable is the UK? The report surveyed and tested 10,000 16-65 year olds, 600 employers and 500 educators from across the UK, found that more than half of over 16s are failing to demonstrate all the employability skills needed to succeed in the future workplace. In the South West this is similar.

These skills of leadership and creativity are crucial in preparing the UK for a world of work where, due to the speed of change, we are unable to accurately predict what the jobs of the future will look like and what technical skills will be needed.

The seven employability skills are what humans are best at – they cannot be replicated by robots and will become even more valuable in the future, as global patterns of work change and automation, freelance working patterns and the average working age all increase.

The study showed that traditional sources of these skills, like in-work training and formal education, are not currently set-up to tackle the employability skills gap.

Despite the majority (79 per cent) of UK employers rating the skills as important to their industry in the next ten years, a third do not plan to offer any training in the near future.

The report highlights that, if we are to be successful in addressing this employability skills gap, educators, businesses and the Government must work more closely together.

Respondents from the South West were often over confident in the seven employability skills.

The research findings showed Millennials as the lowest performing age group, with just 4 in 10 of 25-34 year olds able to display all of the core skills. This generation risks being overtaken in the increasingly competitive employment landscape by the younger Gen Z (16-24 year olds. Across younger respondents however, the study found high levels of over confidence when matching actual abilities to how they rated themselves, showing the need for ongoing support in building skills.

For every skill, women outperformed men, with 46 per cent of women able to demonstrate they had all seven skills, compared to just 39 per cent of men. Despite this gap, men were much more likely than women to be highly confident in their own skills, particularly when it came to adaptability (19 per cent of men compared to 14 per cent of women).

Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays UK, said: “Today’s findings show the importance of lifelong learning, whatever your age or chosen career path. I believe that education should not stop at the school gates – businesses, educators and the Government all have a role to play.

“We need to work together to agree a core set of transferable employability skills, giving people of all ages the tools needed to upskill and ultimately creating a competitive workforce that will support the UK economy.

“That is why Barclays is backing the UK by announcing the expansion of our LifeSkills programme to all ages – by the end of 2022 we’re committing to helping 10 million adults build the employability skills they need to succeed in the future workplace.”