Cloud skills essential to digital transformation

UK organizations consider cloud skills essential to digital transformation, according to a new report by Microsoft.

Entitled "Microsoft Cloud Skills Report: Closing the Cloud Skills Chasm", it says 83 percent of UK’s organizations consider cloud skills "important" or "critical" to digital transformation.

Those companies with 1000 employees or more consider them "very critical."

The report suggests this could be because larger companies are "saddled with a broader tapestry of siloed, legacy systems." Just two percent of respondents had no plans of going more digital.

However, finding the right people with the right skills turned out harder than expected. A third of respondents tried to recruit people with cloud skills in the last year, and out of that number 38 percent found it either difficult, or "very difficult." This percentage is even higher among large companies.

"With almost 10,000 UK businesses employing more than 250 staff, this could mean that over 3,500 organizations in the UK could be hampered by a lack of qualified staff," the report says.

Microsoft says that this problem is not confined to the borders of the UK, but is in fact a "global phenomenon." It’s present in the US, Europe, and China, as well.

"Shortages like these pose serious competitive issues for companies and threaten the long-term economic health of countries around the world. More than that, they threaten to widen the income gap between those who have the skills to succeed in the 21st century and those who do not."

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

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Future plc Publication. All rights reserved.

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