ISG has launched it latest Wide Angle ‘Rethinking the skills conundrum’, seeking to connect the dots between people, place and productivity.

One of the primary limiting factors impacting organisations across the public and private sectors is access to a correctly skilled workforce. Today, skills demand outstrips supply, and this situation will persist unless we change our approach to identifying and planning for our future workforce requirements.

Building a sustainable talent pipeline
Generating a sustainable and future-focused pipeline of talent requires the mapping of skills to opportunity, and we must have confidence in the insight and data we use to inform this process. Fortunately, we already have a highly-significant proxy for future skills demand. Investment in the built environment represents a significantly underused asset as an early predictor of emerging sectors, growth markets and highly-valued skills. Conversely, reduced investment in physical assets could provide an early warning of future sector, and therefore skills, viability.

By interrogating data on investment decisions at the earliest stages, we create a dynamic and forward-looking perspective on future skills demand at a national, regional and local level. We stimulate earlier engagement and collaboration between organisations, educators, young people and parents/carers to map skills and aspirations to future opportunities; creating a more targeted talent pipeline and a perception reset for the built environment as a desirable career option.

Here  you can watch ISG’s COO Zoe Price and sector directors Paul Serkis and Jane O’Leary discuss the findings and explore how the UK upskills and prepares for the careers of the future: