Thus, having a highly skilled workforce is paramount in the telecoms sector: it not only needs to respond to the technological change, it needs to publicly drive that change and innovation too.
That is why telcos can’t rely on having one or two high-powered figureheads akin to Elon Musk at Tesla: they need an entire workforce that can pivot to change quickly and fluidly in order to deliver for their customers.
This is a long way from where the industry is today.
Korn Ferry’s study on ‘The Global Talent Crunch’ found technology, media, and telecoms (TMT) employers will face a global shortfall of 4.3 million workers by 2030: in the UK, that will result in failing to realise almost 9% of TMT sector potential revenue, valued at £22.2bn.
Crucially, Capita’s research suggests that only 28% of HR leaders are fully confident the business has the skills they need to meet business objectives over the next 5 years.
The need to address the future skills and roles of the entire workforce is therefore compelling.
Capita’s research reveals both the skills that telcos should be looking for in their future workforce, and the role types they should consider building or – for the moment – buying in, when looking at reskilling programmes:
This shift away from jobs to skills is already underway. Evidence from the World Economic Forum (WEF) demonstrates that technology specialist roles that demand a broad skillset are already rapidly emerging at the expense of more generic administrative and secretarial roles, which are in decline.
This is a trend seen across many industries; those with this skillset will be in high demand and telcos will face stiff competition, especially
from new entrants into the digital communications space, where it is already losing the talent war.
The engineering-centricity of the telco world should not be forgotten. According to research from Qualcomm, skills to develop and deliver 5G will be essential – there will be an additional 605,000 5G-related jobs created in the UK alone by 2035. Indeed much of the AR, VR and related technology that the ‘emerging’ roles will support are intrinsically dependent on the successful roll-out of 5G.
One thing is clear: these jobs and skills are in their infancy today, and it will take a significant investment in training and upskilling on the part of telcos to deliver in order to close the gap.