Data Analytics Career Accelerator

The inaugural career accelerator in Data Analytics brings together knowledge from experts at LSE, technology leaders Tableau and Github, and industry employers Thoughtworks and Robert Walters.

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FourthRev Career Accelerators

The digitisation of the global economy driven by The Fourth Industrial Revolution has been dramatically accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with company digital transformation agendas shifting forwards by up to 7-years.

As a result, the post-pandemic economy will look fundamentally different to that which came before. The world economic forum has forecast that digitisation of the global economy will result in 85 million lost jobs, primarily resulting from AI & Automation, whilst simultaneously creating 97 million new jobs. Microsoft has recently forecast that digital technology job capacity will increase by 149 million worldwide by 2025, including 3 million in the UK.

To succeed in this new economy, the workforce of the future will require specific and different technological, social and emotional, and higher cognitive skills. To rise to the challenge of developing these capabilities, the education sector must be at the forefront of change, continuously evolving and adapting to meet these new needs.

At the centre of this innovation must be the university sector, whose scale, reach and impact will be fundamental to developing the higher-order capabilities that will define the future of work. To succeed in this challenge, university offerings must continue to evolve to adapt to the changing economy and to ensure that they are built to meet the new needs of the modern learner.

This is why we are absolutely delighted to introduce FourthRev’s University Career Accelerators.

What are FourthRev’s Career Accelerators?

University Career Accelerators are unique, online programmes developed by world renowned universities and leading global technology companies to meet the needs of the digital economy and the modern learner. Career Accelerators develop the technical knowledge and practical skills needed to perform in real-world roles, the business knowledge necessary to translate those abilities into meaningful company value, the human skills crucial for gaining and retaining jobs, and the cognitive capabilities essential for ongoing growth.

University Career Accelerators key facts:

• 6-month, online programmes developed by leading universities in collaboration with FourthRev’s global technology partners
• Built for career changers and career starters seeking high-growth opportunities in the digital economy
• Prepare learners for career success through a unique combination of academic excellence, technology skills, human skills and applied professional development
• Result in certification from globally renowned universities with credit pathways to formal academic postgraduate qualifications.
• Central focus on job outcomes, with job matching to FourthRev employer partners seeking digital talent.

Why are Career Accelerators needed?

To enable individuals to lead fulfilling and successful economic and social lives, and for the economies of the future to succeed, we must close the digital capability gap. The current mismatch between the huge demand for digital talent and the dramatic shortfall of graduate and working professionals with the requisite digital capabilities is forecast to cost G20 countries $11.5tn in lost GDP growth to 2030.

FourthRev’s own research has found that without access to the right quality and quantity of talent, well over half of businesses reported they were concerned about missing out on key strategic deliverables (60%) within the next five years, as well as not delivering value to shareholders (55%). 54% reported finding it difficult to source good candidates for entry-level digital economy roles and that just over half (53%) would pay over the odds to acquire the digital skills they need.

We found that a key cause for concern amongst employers (88%) is a lack of confidence in the existing structures of the education sector to deliver capabilities required to thrive in the digital economy. With only 15% of organisations backing digital skills boot camps as a way to close the gap and 22% feeling that university alone would provide the right skill sets, 66% of talent leaders would prefer a hybrid solution that combines academic qualifications as well as a practical work portfolio.

By combining the very best of career focused, high ROI education with the value of the world’s best universities, Career Accelerators offer a unique proposition to unlock high-growth digital careers:

The very best of career focused, high ROI education (bootcamps):

• Technical skills
• Real project experience
• Industry certification
• Career coaching
• Job matching

Unique value of the world’s best universities:

• Higher-order graduate capabilities
• Academic quality and excellence
• University certification
• Employer Recognition
• Globally recognised academic qualifications

What does this mean for learners?

For career changers and career starters seeking high-growth roles in the digital economy, Career Accelerators offer a truly ‘best of both worlds’ proposition.

These intensive learning opportunities are built with industry and acutely focused on delivering direct job outcomes. Simultaneously, delivered by the world’s best universities, learners know they will undertake a learning experience of the highest quality, develop the higher order capabilities that will differentiate them in the digital economy, and be backed by qualifications that will be recognised all over the world.

Career Accelerators are delivered by top university faculty and industry expert facilitators that operate in digital fields on a daily basis. They follow a project-based learning framework focused on developing applied capabilities that can be evidenced to employers through an assessed project portfolio.

Learners build holistic skills sets developed utilising proprietary industry data and informed by FourthRev’s technology and employer partners. These skills sets ensure they have the pre-requisite capabilities required to gain digital technology jobs, and the higher order capabilities that will differentiate them and allow them to adapt and thrive to accelerate their careers.

Learners receive intensive careers support throughout their learning journey, including strengths analysis, CV development, mock interviews and job matching through FourthRev’s network of employer and recruitment partners.

By combining the best of careers focused education with the value of the world’s best universities, Career Accelerators deliver two key outcomes for learners. The first is the delivery of new career opportunities, with learners prepared for new job success or to accelerate their progression within an existing field. The second outcome is a credential from a renowned university recognised all over the world, with a pathway to an accredited postgraduate qualification.

How can learners get started?

FourthRev is delighted to launch our University Career Accelerators September 2021 with the first of our university partner programmes enrolling learners now.

These online first programmes are designed to support career changers and career starters whenever they are located as long as they are committed to achieving high-growth roles in the digital economy.

By combining traditional university strengths with industry focused learning experiences, universities will lead the post-pandemic recovery.

Although far from unique, the higher education sector has experienced a particularly tumultuous 12-months. The pandemic has brought unprecedented difficulties for all stakeholders, and myriad challenges remain across admissions, course delivery, and student and staff wellbeing.

At the same time, universities have excelled in many ways. University research has been critical to developing vaccines in extraordinary timeframes, saving millions of lives. University graduates have been heroes of the pandemic response as experts of the statistical, scientific and medical professions. And universities have experienced record applications and enrolments, testament to the fact that in times of uncertainty, more people trust their futures to universities.

And beyond these short term horizons, the key trends that were posing existential questions for university leaders before the pandemic have not gone away. Instead they have been accelerated and exacerbated by the mixture of economic crisis and rapid digital transformation that has characterised the global economy.

So as vaccine programmes start to be rolled out at scale and we begin to look to the post-pandemic future, the critical question for sector leaders is how do universities lead societies, and themselves, to bounce back stronger than before?

The post-pandemic recovery will be built upon the digital economy

TechUK’s jobs barometer found that 45% of surveyed UK businesses were actively recruiting for tech roles in the first month of 2021. Antony Walker, Deputy CEO of techUK, said: “Amidst the global pandemic we know that technology and tech-enabled jobs are sustaining the economy, as well as providing the key to our economic recovery.”

Microsoft has recently forecast that digital technology job capacity will increase by 149 million worldwide by 2025, including 3 million in the UK. A recent report by RMIT university and Deloitte Access Economics reached similar conclusions on the Australian economy, whilst highlighting that a lack of digital skills risked $10 billion growth over the same period. These critical gaps are in well-known fields including data analytics, software programming, artificial intelligence and cyber security.

Universities already faced challenges in developing learners’ digital skills prior to the pandemic, and it is clear that this need will only become more acute into the future. With digital skills a prerequisite for 82% of all UK job roles as early as 2019, learners across every discipline need the opportunity to develop up-to-date, industry relevant, digital knowledge and skills. To meet employer expectations, this means graduates being able to evidence meaningful technical and enterprise capabilities through work experience and project portfolios.

Education offerings for a digital economy should build upon the best of traditional university education

The common backlash against increased demand for digital skills in universities is that it equates to a call to eschew traditional university offerings in favour of becoming jobs factories defined by industry. This debate rests on false binaries that have held the sector back from fully embracing its unique role in the digital economy.

Businesses that have survived the last 12-months have done so because their teams are full of individuals that can solve problems, that can exist in ambiguity and manage in uncertainty. Teams that have succeeded have rapidly learnt new ways of working, of communicating and engaging with each other.Teams that have thrived have reimagined entire business models by understanding the new challenges of their customers, and then successfully delivered them by empathising with the unique challenges of their colleagues.

These are examples of the higher order capabilities that universities have successfully developed in individuals for generations. These are the capabilities that employers seek when they look for outstanding talent that can join their team and accelerate their careers. In a digital future, where the only certainty is continuous and rapid change, these higher order capabilities are more important than ever.

To prosper in the post-pandemic world, the sector will build upon its traditional strengths, evolved and adapted to meet the needs of the modern, digital economy

The universities that lead our recovery will combine the best of their traditional educational value with up-to-date industry relevant experiences that develop critical digital capabilities. It is through this approach that universities can ensure learners have the requisite technical knowledge, skills and demonstrable know-how to accelerate their career in the short term, yet also possess the higher order capabilities to build their long term success.

By tailoring these experiences to serve the needs of diverse learners at different stages of their lives, universities will also help people transition from challenging circumstances into new, high-growth careers. As we seek to bounce back from the pandemic, this is a wonderful way for universities to lead.

FourthRev Introduction

FourthRev has been founded on the belief that close collaboration between industry and the education sector is key to addressing the skill demands of the fourth industrial revolution.

Our vision is to be the world’s leading enabler of industry co-created, career-focused education experiences at universities, colleges and educational institutions.

Our mission is to accelerate our education partners’ capability to develop student and lifelong learner competencies aligned to the needs of the digital economy.

Our purpose is to create social and economic value by closing the digital skills gap.

The digital skills challenge

Our previous post explored the scale of the digital skills challenge across the globe. The statistics we shared demonstrate that our education systems are struggling to meet this challenge in the current paradigm:

• Digital skills are ‘essential requirements’ for 82% of all UK job vacancies;
• European Commission figures show that around 37% of workers in Europe don’t have even basic digital skills;
• The world economic forum estimates that more than half (54%) of all employees will require significant reskilling by 2022;
• Deloitte reports that by effectively addressing the ‘future of work’ skills crisis in Australia, a $36 billion economic bonus can be fulfilled;
• The US has 1 million unfulfilled IT jobs.

Changing nature of job roles

“Digital skills are becoming near-universal requirements for employment.” UK government, dept. of digital, culture, media and skills.

The relevance of this challenge will be apparent to the vast majority of professionals reading this post. Even for those that graduated a small number of years ago, new fundamentals will be playing a critical role in day-to-day functions:

• Marketing professionals now need to be experts across many social media platforms, SEO, CRM, etc.
• Computer programmers have migrated from working with on-premise servers to cloud computing, working in agile and DevOps.
• Finance professionals now leverage cloud accounting software and automation.
• HR professionals focus on employee analytics and engagement platforms through data-management platforms.

This list could go on. Beyond job-specific skills, every professional is also now expected to demonstrate a basic level of digital literacy to successfully operate in the digital economy. This includes productivity tools such as Office 365, G-suite, Trello or Asana and collaboration tools such as Teams or Slack. It has been reported 98% of Fortune 500 companies use Applicant Tracking Systems that filter applications based on keywords, meaning that many of the students graduating this year will need to have familiarity with these tools and technologies to secure their first job.

Universities, colleges and further education institutions remain the key to solving this challenge

In 2017, the UN reported over 200 million people were studying in accredited higher education worldwide, a number estimated to hit 200 million by 2030. This compares to an estimated 20,000 students that completed bootcamps in the US in 2018, the largest market for such courses. Therefore, whilst the growth of alternative pathways, such as bootcamps and online platforms, is a highly significant development (to be explored further in a later post), it is clear that the formal education sector needs to be at the centre of any solution that impacts the digital skills crisis at scale.

It is not therefore a question of university or bootcamp, degree or certification. Our predicted 100-year life across multiple jobs and careers will likely see us engage with universities, colleges, and alternative pathways, and on the job training. Moreover, whilst specific technical skills are becoming ever-more important, employers are still crying out for the human and business enabler skills that allow people to use technology to create meaningful outcomes. Universities and colleges have the opportunity to develop all these skills, including critical thinking, collaboration and problem solving.

Evolving offerings for the digital economy

The real question for educational institutions is therefore how to continue to evolve and adapt their course offerings to meet the changing and diverse needs of the 21st century learner. Many institutions are already innovating, evidenced by the growth of micro-credentials, university MOOC platforms, and higher education apprenticeships. At the heart of many of the most successful innovations has been close collaboration with industry, exposing students to up-to-date tools and technologies, supporting the development of applied skills and providing insights into different career paths.

FourthRev has been established to accelerate these innovations and enable them at scale. Working closely with leading technology companies, including AWS, Tableau, Salesforce and Xero, we support our education partners to quickly release and maintain up-to-date, highly relevant programs that can allow students to access some of the most exciting roles across the digital economy. These courses range from micro-credentials through to degree courses and FourthRev can then support the connection of these students to employer partners specifically seeking those skillsets.

For our partners students, they get the benefits of a holistic education that sets them up for long term career success, and industry co-created experiences aligned to the fast changing dynamics of the digital economy.