The FutureDotNow coalition brings together organisations that want to work together to accelerate the digital upskilling of their employees, customers and wider community.
We help businesses understand the issue, build collective action and drive change.
As a powerful collective brand, FutureDotNow can have an exponentially greater reach, influence and impact. Shared ownership of the digital skills challenge gives us greater insight and maximises the reach and power of solutions. Through our members’ employees, customers, and supply chains we have a reach of millions; and together we can have an exponential impact on closing the UK’s digital skills gap.
We are now in the process of migrating from the FutureDotNow membership pledge to the Workforce Digital Skills Charter. From September 2024, the pledge will be superseded by the Charter and existing members, having signed the pledge, will be recognised as Charter signatories.
The Charter is a shared statement of ambition for all those working to close the essential digital skills gap in the UK workforce. It is a natural evolution of the membership pledge, more accurately reflecting how organisations are working together following the publication of the Digital Skills Roadmap last summer and the ongoing activities of the 2024 delivery plan.
Work continues to update and strengthen the FutureDotNow offer to partners, with more details to be shared later in the year, including new assets and resources within a dedicated member area.
The pledge
We want every member of the coalition to believe in the vital importance of accelerating the UK’s digital skills. We want you to be part of an action-centered community that’s developing, sharing and implementing best practice to get working-age adults across the UK ready to thrive in our increasingly digital world. We believe that by taking positive collective action to equip people with the Essential Digital Skills, we can create a thriving, economically prosperous digital society.
To help us do so, every organisation in the FutureDotNow community make three commitments:
Leverage the common language and framework of Essential Digital Skills
We ask all members to leverage the framework across their business to help understand the skills their organisation requires and/or provides and, ultimately, help people build Essential Digital Skills.
The Essential Digital Skills Framework sets the standards and terminology for 20 essential digital tasks necessary for work today. It’s an excellent resource every business can use. It creates clarity and simplicity and provides a common language and specific skill definitions.
Assess the Essential Digital Skills of your workforce
We ask all businesses to assess the current digital capability and confidence levels of their workforce, or that of the organisations they support.
Many businesses are not aware of the true size of the Essential Digital Skills gap present in their organisation and the impact it may be having. Whether you’re looking to get an indicative view or one specific to your business, there are lots of resources available to our members.
Help your workforce to build the Essential Digital Skills for Work
We ask all businesses to actively help people grow their core digital skills and ensure they can do at least the 20 work tasks outlined in the Essential Digital Skills Framework.
Our work with members has shown that there are many different ways businesses can help people upskill – from Marks & Spencer embarking on a ‘big bang’ culture shift to Nationwide working with an external skills provider as a learning partner. Read about these and more approaches to digital upskilling.
We are now in the process of migrating from the FutureDotNow membership pledge to the Workforce Digital Skills Charter. From September 2024, the pledge will be superseded by the Charter and existing members, having signed the pledge, will be recognised as Charter signatories.