Scale routes to awareness and impact
Upskilling 22 million working-age adults is a significant challenge. It helps to break it down.
Our Pathways build awareness of the essential digital skills gap through sector leadership, place-based delivery and targeted support for SMEs and people not in work, turning this awareness into scale action.
Sector and Place-based mobilisation
We’ve developed ways to understand and communicate the state of the nation, introducing Sector and Place heatmaps to perspective and clarity. Our heatmaps show the workforce digital skills position for each industry sector and UK region, and whether it’s improving.
For most groups, fewer than half of workers have the full suite of digital essentials for work.
Sector mobilisation
In most sectors, fewer than half of workers have the full suite of digital essentials for work.
Find out which sectors have action plans in place and which need leadership.
Place-based mobilisation
No region has more than half its working population with the full suite of essential digital skills for work.
Regional leadership is in place in the South-West, with the rest of the UK not yet mobilised.
Progress so far
Working with the business community and other stakeholders, we made significant progress in 2025, prioritising work to identify and solve systemic barriers to progress.
Equipping those not in work with essential digital and AI skills
The Essential Digital Skills & AI Employability Project is testing the impact on employability of providing jobseekers with skills in the AI-embedded Essential Digital Skills Framework. Co-led with Cosmic and Accenture, this is a government-funded proof-of-concept is bringing together FutureDotNow’s South-West regional work and Not in Work workstream.
Reaching the SME community
As the largest single group of employers, SMEs are a critical community and understanding their needs features strongly in our work. Social enterprise Digital Boost and Be the Business are key FutureDotNow partners for engaging this audience.
Breaking the cycle for young people
While FutureDotNow’s focus on the needs of the current working population, without action to break the cycle, young people will continue to enter the labour force without the essential digital skills.
Co-led by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT and iDEA – both influential organisations working in digital skills education – this workstream is working to raise awareness among stakeholders in ensuring young people are work-ready.
