Despite government-backed efforts to cement the UK's place as a science and technology superpower by 2030, with multi-million pound investment in AI, new research launched in June from online learning platform Coursera places the UK 45th globally for technology and business skills proficiency.

The findings are from Coursera’s 2024 sixth annual ‘Global Skills Report’, which draws on data from over 148m learners and 7,000 institutional partners from 109 countries to identify skill proficiency trends. This data is combined with third-party indicators, including the Global Innovation Index (GII), Labour Force Participation Rate, Human Capital Index (HCI) and GDP per capita.

The Coursera results indicate that the UK continues to fall behind in the global race for key skills, having ranked 38th in 2022 and 64th in 2023. This year, the UK continues to be outperformed by prominent European counterparts, including Germany (3rd), France (5th) and Spain (7th), as well as developing economies like Brazil (19th). However, the UK’s struggles to upskill were matched and exceeded by other Anglophone peers, most notably the US, which placed 69th, the report said.

In the UK, 3.8m learners have enrolled for over 6.9m Coursera courses and recorded 6.2m learning hours since October 2021.

Coursera’s data reveals explosive growth in Generative AI (GenAI) course enrolments – a 1,060% year-on-year increase – as the world races toward AI literacy. While the UK has seen a 961% increase in AI upskilling in the past 12 months, it has seen a lower uptake than the global average, the report said, and lags behind the US (1,058%).

Nations across the world appear to be prioritising AI upskilling more than the UK, the report suggested. In Brazil, which ranks among the global top 20, and which attains cutting-edge proficiency in tech and data science, there has been a 1,079% year-on-year increase in GenAI course enrolments.

“With the UK technology sector employing millions of people and contributing over £150bn to the nation’s economy, the country’s institutions and leaders must continue to prioritise upskilling to remain competitive in the AI age – one in which two-third of jobs may be exposed to some degree of automation,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO. “This report aims to offer actionable insights for UK businesses, governments and academic institutions as they respond to this unprecedented disruption and contribute to a future in which access to high-quality learning empowers everyone.”

Of the 3.8m Coursera learners in the UK, 48% are women, 35% are women in STEM and 39% are learning on mobile devices, the report said. The top Professional Certificates being earned in the UK are Google Data Analytics, Google Project Management and Google Cybersecurity. The top 10 skills learners are seeking to acquire in the UK, in order, are Epidemiology, Bioinformatics, Regression (a method used for predictive modelling in machine learning), FinTech, Machine Learning Algorithms, Python Programming, Investment Management, Bayesian Statistics, Risk Management and Applied Machine Learning. In contrast, the top 10 target roles in the UK are Bookkeeper, Risk Analyst, Data Analyst, Database Architect, Software Developer, Financial Analyst, Product Manager, Technology Consultant, Cybersecurity Analyst and Data Scientist.

Methodology

With over 148m learners, 7,000 institutions and 7,100 courses from 325 of the world’s top universities and industry partners, Coursera has a significant datasets for identifying and measuring skill trends. In the Global Skills Report, 109 countries are ranked against one another, with percentile rankings attributed to each skill proficiency. A country that shows 100% skills proficiency ranks at the top of the 100+ countries, and a country at 0% is at the bottom.

This year’s Global Skills Report introduces a new methodology that combines learners' skill proficiency scores on the Coursera platform with third-party indicators, including the Global Innovation Index (GII), Labor Force Participation Rate, Human Capital Index (HCI) and GDP per capita.

Enrolment trends in GenAI in the UK find that the most popular courses are GenAI with Large Language Models, Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT and Generative AI for Everyone.

Outside the UK, in Europe for example, the European Commission aims to reach 80% of EU adults with at least basic digital skills and 20 million Information & Communication Technology (ICT) specialists, especially women, employed across the EU by 2030.

Nineteen of the top 25 countries globally are in Europe, where learners demonstrate strong overall skill proficiency, the report said.

Excerpted from Coursera’s Global Skills Report 2024

Power Points

1. Switzerland ranks top of this year’s global skills leaderboard, followed by Japan, with European countries occupying 17 of the top 25 places.
2. The UK’s individual business (53%), tech (59%) and data science (72%) scores lag behind European counterparts like Germany (93%/96%/97%), as well as France, Spain and emerging markets like Brazil.
3. British learners on Coursera are placing particular emphasis on skills at the intersection of healthcare and technology, with Epidemiology and Bioinformatics identified as the UK’s top two skills.
4. Cybersecurity skilling stalls despite urgent need for cybersecurity skills development. European enrolments in cybersecurity courses declined by 5% year-on-year – despite Europe being the region most impacted by cyberattacks.
5. As learners turn to micro-credentials to gain the practical, job-ready skills needed to succeed in the digital economy, the UK has seen a 59% YoY growth in Professional Certificates.

Image credit | Shutterstock