Skills lacking in workforce 2017 statistic

This statistic shows the frequency of skills described as lacking among applicants as a proportion of all skill-shortage vacancies (SSVs) in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2017. The most common skills that employers identified as lacking when trying to fill such vacancies were technical, practical or job specific. 30 percent of applicants were seen to be lacking basic numerical skills whilst 23 percent didn't come up to scratch with regards to using basic IT.

Frequency of skills described as lacking among applicants as a proportion of all skill-shortage vacancies (SSVs) in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2017*

Characteristic	Proportion of all vacancies
Specialist skills or knowledge	65%
Solving complex problems	41%
Knowledge of products and services offered	38%
Knowledge of how the organisation works	32%
Complexnumerical/statistical skills	27%
Reading/understanding instructions,reports etc	33%
Writing instructions, reports etc.	28%
Basic numerical skills	30%
Computer literacy / basic IT skills	23%
Advanced or specialist IT skills	21%
Adapting to new equipment or materials	22%
Manual dexterity	17%
Communicating in a foreign language	16%

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Release date

October 2018

More information

Region

United Kingdom

Survey time period

March and July 2017

Number of respondents

3,244 respondents

Method of interview

Telephone interview

Supplementary notes

* Skill-shortage vacancies (SSVs) are defined as "vacancies which are proving difficult to fill due to the establishment not being able to find applicants with the appropriate skills, qualifications or experience."

Methodology and background note (from source):
During the survey, employers were first asked to give their reasons for not being able to fill vacancies spontaneously (i.e. without being presented with a list of possible reasons). Any employers not reporting skills-related issues were then prompted as to whether any of their hard-to-fill vacancies were proving hard-to-fill due to a lack of skills, experience or qualifications among applicants.
Employers who reported having vacancies that were difficult to fill because of skill shortages were read a list of types of skills and asked, for each occupation in which they reported skill-shortage vacancies, which skills were lacking. This statistic shows results based on the total number of skill-shortage vacancies (as opposed to establishments with skill-shortage vacancies).

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