{"id":41733,"date":"2021-01-27T08:55:27","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T08:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=80aae0b64303215cdf78ad7b80958807"},"modified":"2021-01-27T08:55:27","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T08:55:27","slug":"three-quarters-of-over-45s-keen-to-invest-in-digital-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/three-quarters-of-over-45s-keen-to-invest-in-digital-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Three-quarters of over-45s keen to invest in digital skills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field-name-field-author field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden\"><br \/>\n      <span class=\"field-item even\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudpro.co.uk\/authors\/bobby-hellard\">Bobby Hellard<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n  <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-published-date field-type-datetime field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><span class=\"date-display-single\">27 Jan, 2021<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"short-teaser\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudpro.co.uk\/\" title=\"\" class=\"combined-link\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body\">\n<p>Nearly three-quarters of people over the age of 45 say they are willing to invest time in learning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/business-strategy\/careers-training\/32747\/a-look-at-some-of-the-uks-best-digital-skills-initiatives\"  data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/business-strategy\/careers-training\/32747\/a-look-at-some-of-the-uks-best-digital-skills-initiatives\">digital skills<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The findings come from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/software\/video-conferencing\/357355\/microsoft-ceo-warns-of-video-call-fatigue\"  data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/software\/video-conferencing\/357355\/microsoft-ceo-warns-of-video-call-fatigue\">Microsoft<\/a> report, which reveals that many (44%) of over-45s are keen to pursue a new career, with 23%\u00a0of workers over 45 years saying they\u00a0would consider switching to a role in tech.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In order to do so, 73% of over-45s\u00a0said they would commit over three hours a week to reskilling.\u00a0However, 60% of the same generation said they do not know what resources are available for them to improve their digital skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The sudden appetite to learn IT skills\u00a0in the over-45s is largely due to long-term financial concerns, as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/business-strategy\/careers-training\/356834\/bridging-the-coronavirus-skills-gap\"  data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/business-strategy\/careers-training\/356834\/bridging-the-coronavirus-skills-gap\">the impact of the pandemic<\/a> has many fearing for both job security and also retirement plans. Around 32% of respondents said they were worried about financial security and 26% expressed concerns about the rising state pension ages &#8211; currently 66-years-old for both men and women in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Concurrently, the tech industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors and Microsoft believes it needs to avoid misconceptions that recruitment mainly focuses on the young. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There has never been a greater need for individuals to invest time in upskilling and developing their digital skills,&#8221; said Simon Lambert, Microsoft&#8217;s chief learning officer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is a dangerous misconception that the tech industry is just an industry for the young. The truth is that we need people with a diverse range of experiences, backgrounds and ages. And we need them now to fill the growing skills gap which, left unplugged, will significantly impact the UK&#8217;s recovery.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLambert is encouraging people who are considering exploring an &#8220;encore&#8221; career to look at opportunities available at Microsoft Digital Skills Hub, where they can also seek advice on how to get started.<\/p>\n<p>The top roles for over-45s that were identified in the research were IT support (35%), design (25%), ops manager (18%), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/business-strategy\/32609\/understanding-the-power-of-data-science\"  data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.co.uk\/business-strategy\/32609\/understanding-the-power-of-data-science\">data scientist<\/a>\u00a0(17%) and developer (16%). <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>      Bobby Hellard<\/p>\n<p>        27 Jan, 2021    <\/p>\n<p>      Nearly three-quarters of people over the age of 45 say they are willing to invest time in learning digital skills.\u00a0<br \/>\nThe findings come from a Microsoft report, which reveals that many (44%) of o&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41734,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41733\/revisions\/41734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}