The UK is dealing with a chronic data skills shortage – and it’s costing the economy billions each year

A chronic lack of data skills across the UK workforce is costing the country £57.2 billion ($72.9 billion) per year, according to new research, with education and manufacturing among the worst-affected sectors.

Statistics from the Multiverse Skills Intelligence Report shows workers are spending an average of 14.3 hours per week on data-related tasks such as data entry, analysis, visualization, and report generation.

But those same workers are wasting an average of 4.3 hours each week - more than 10% of their total working time - due to a lack of skills in areas such as data analysis , automation, and predictive modeling.

Nearly nine-in-ten business leaders believe their organization has significant skills gaps, and half of employees said they lack the necessary skills to make data analysis more efficient or to automate processes. Across all industries an average of 90% of employees want to improve their data skills.

Employees are relying heavily on Excel, the report found, with little experience in Power BI, Tableau , or Python . More than nine-in-ten healthcare workers, for example, said they have no skills in Python, despite spending 20 hours per week working with data.

"Companies recognize the value of big data, and are collecting vast amounts of it. But their employees are spending hours each week struggling in spreadsheets, because they’ve never been trained in these areas that they’re now expected to know," said founder and CEO Euan Blair.

"The economic cost of the time spent unproductively grappling with data tasks is in the billions: it’s holding businesses back, holding careers back, and it’s holding the economy back. Companies have spent billions on software , but hardly anything on the skills needed to get the most from that software."

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, around 27.4% of the UK workforce, or about 8.2 million workers, are in knowledge-intensive industries potentially affected by this data skills gap.

These include workers in sectors such as information and communication, finance and insurance, STEM, and education.

Similar analysis by the McKinsey Global Institute has concluded that, by 2030, UK GDP could increase by up to 22% as a result of AI productivity gains - but only if workers have the right skills.

The government is well aware of the problem.

Manufacturers: Transform how you approach business

"The UK is lagging behind on data skills as this report from Multiverse shows, and we urgently need to address that to get our economy back onto firm foundations for growth," said minister for skills Jacqui Smith.

"Skills England will do just this. By bringing businesses together with unions, mayors and training providers, we will break down barriers to opportunity and identify skills gaps, ensuring that our workforce gets the training needed for the dynamic industries of the future."