ITP Partner Event: Skills Foresighting Roundtable

The Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult (CSAC), has been successful in securing funding from the Gatsby Foundation to carry out workforce foresighting research into future skills needs of the 5G telecoms supply chain in the UK. The outcome of this research will be part of a larger body of research being undertaken by the Workforce Foresighting Hub, funded by Innovate UK.

“In the wireless industry, it is widely known that we face a skills shortage. It is less clear how to begin to address this issue in a meaningful way and in terms/timescales that businesses can support. In my roles at Samsung, I can see that it's incumbent on industry leaders to come together and play a pivotal role in mapping out the skills development needed to keep our industry alive and well in the decades to come” – Raj Gawera, VP & Managing Director of Samsung Cambridge & Samsung Denmark Research Centres.

The telecoms supply chain is undergoing significant changes with new suppliers for private and public networks. The work will look at the skills needs in the next five to fifteen years, from design and hardware manufacturing to firmware, security and application software.

This foresighting project is supported by the Future Telecoms team in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). 'Future Telecoms' has been identified as one of the critical technologies for the future in the government's new Science and Technology Framework. In order to meet our ambition to grow the UK's future telecoms ecosystem, we will need the right talent and skills in place that enable true leadership in innovation and commercialisation in the UK. This foresighting project will help DSIT identify which skills the sector will require, and how academia, industry and government can work together to ensure we have the right workforce in place to meet our ambition. Felix Ruechardt – Policy & Regulatory Lead, Telecoms Diversification Unit

Register to be part of the round table where we will explore in detail the future skills needs of the sector. This will inform a series of round tables with education suppliers and course developers to ensure that the industry has the skills it requires in the future.