Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the number of potential employees with sufficient (a) software and (b) data skills in the labour market.

The government is investing a total of £3.8bn in skills in England by 2024-25 and at the most recent SR we quadrupled the scale of free Skills Bootcamps in digital skills, including software and data skills.

My department recognises that Digital Skills shortages cannot be tackled by government alone, which is why we established the Digital Skills Council in 2022. Government offers a range of free in digital skills, including software and data skills.

DSIT is taking proactive steps to address the distinct skills needs of our priority technology sectors. For example, through the £30 million AI and Data Science Conversion Course programme.