Most UK businesses don't find cloud certifications essential

The cloud skills shortage that’s omnipresent in British business seems to be forcing companies to turn a blind eye on candidates lacking certification. This is according to Microsoft’s newly released report, entitled "Microsoft Cloud Skills Report: Closing the Cloud Skills Chasm."

Polling UK businesses for the report, 45 percent said certifications are "nice to have," but just 35 per cent said they’re desirable or essential. The report calls this proportion "surprisingly low," questioning if this could "be a further symptom of the challenges of finding people with adequate skills in the first place".

It’s also interesting to see how businesses see the near future. Almost half (48 percent) believe it will be easier to find skilled workers (34 percent said easier, and 14 percent said "much easier"). Almost a third (30 percent) believe the situation will remain the same.

"Projections showing the gap between the number of people with cloud skills vs the number of roles available continue to show that this gap will continue to widen for many years to come," the report adds.

As the majority (53 percent) plans on using external partners for cloud skills, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see that companies placed higher importance on certifications for suppliers, as well.

Two-thirds (64 percent) said it was "somewhat important" (34 percent) or very important (29 percent), and almost a quarter (23 percent) feel it unimportant. Another 61 percent said it was important for individual team members to be certified.

This is the second article in the series on Microsoft’s new cloud skills report. You can find the first article on this link. More details about the report, as well as a download link can be found here.

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