How businesses can bridge the skills gap

In Gloucestershire this week the cyber and education sectors aired the issues they need to overcome if we are to provide the talent businesses need to grow, and the solutions began to emerge.

“When I went to talk to my sixth form about not going to university and doing an apprenticeship instead they said ‘we can’t help you’,” Rowan Edlington told the Bridging the Cyber Skills Gap conference at Blackfriars in Gloucester.

“I had to do all the preparation for an apprenticeship, for interviews, on my own - while also forced to go through applying for university anyway; an application I later withdrew.”  

It wasn’t that she wasn’t going to get the grades for university, she was predicted top marks, it was that she knew university was not for her, and neither were A-Levels for that matter. 

In short, Edlington knew her own mind, but she was discouraged by those who could have helped her. 

The former A-Level student was part of a five-strong panel, the second of two groups, at the Blackfrairs event staged by CyNam (which represents cyber sector businesses in the county), Gloucestershire College, the University of Gloucestershire and supporting businesses.

All were there to try to get a better understanding of how everyone can work together to help talent access a fast-growing sector of our economy.