Today is the start of the Digital Skills Festival, back in Manchester gathering the North West’s best talent alongside biggest tech employers to tackle the widening skill shortage.
Starting from today, this event lasts for 5 days ending on the 8th of February. It is the largest digital skills career fair with 1,500 students attending from schools, colleagues and universities to help them decide the career path they want to go down in this sector.
Digital Skills Festival launch starts at the MSP Tech Incubator where the 2019 Digital Skills Audit will be revealed. There is also a GM Digital Skills Programme were Josh Smith, Senior Researcher from DEMOS will talk about the future of education, helping students to truly decide on what they want to do.
Last years results showed that 27% of businesses in the North West had to turn away work as a result of not being able to find the right talent. Katie Gallagher, the Managing Director of Manchester Digital says that despite the digital industry across Manchester and the North West is rapidly growing it is however being restricted shortage of skilled individuals. If you are also struggling take a look at this Digital and IT recruitment agency: Searchability to help you to recruit the best talent!
Companies such as AutoTrader and BJSS will be on hand at this event to offer advice to students on how to break into the industry. Seminars and workshops will be provided during the course of the day giving all students an insight to a day at work, the programmes and placements that are currently on offer within all areas of the digital and IT industry. There will also be activities including coding, building websites, hacking and developing apps to get the best insight possible.
Sarah Brookes-Pearce, Talent Manager at AutoTrader says that events like this are the best in the calendar as through the years these careers fairs have gained them some of the best talent!
Katie Gallagher suggests that with massive companies like Amazon, Moonpig and GCHQ making a move to Manchester there is also an increasing amount of startups, creating an endless amount of career opportunities for those in the North West. Hopefully allowing more people up North to stop relocating to London and still seek the best opportunities in their home town.
