COLLABORATION is the key to upskilling tomorrow’s workforce, ac-cording to Employment and Learning Minister Dr Stephen Farry.
Speaking at a recent Invest NI event the minister reminded potential inward investors of the importance of the business, professional and financial services sectors to the whole Northern Ireland economy.
He told those present at the event: “The growth in business, professional and financial services in the past 15 years has been strong and makes a major impact and contribution to the Northern Ireland econ-omy.”
The minister detailed the extensive work being done to support these sectors of the economy, particularly in relation to ICT skills.
Dr Farry said: “In order to support these sectors effectively we recognise that it is of critical importance to ensure that we have a work-force that is suitably skilled in ICT.
“I established, and chair, an ICT working group comprised of representatives from government, education and business.
“Working together, we have put in place an ICT action plan which addresses the specific skills needs of the local ICT sector through a number of interventions.
“This collaborative approach, working together with all of the key stakeholders, is producing important results. The success of the implementation of the action plan is highlighted by the fact that under-graduate applications to IT-related degrees at both our universities have increased by over 24%.
“The ICT action plan is meeting the skills needs of the sector through the provision of MSc courses for non-IT graduates offered by Queen’s University and the University of Ulster, a key new software systems development A-level is now available in Northern Ireland and academies to train individuals in software test-ing, data analytics and cloud tech-nology.
“The public-private ICT apprenticeship scheme and higher level apprenticeship in ICT are also opening up pathways for more people to join the sector and acquire higher level skills.
“Let me assure you that my focus, as the minister with the responsibility for skills is to continue to work collaboratively with industry and academia to ensure that both inward investing companies, and indigenous companies, are provided with the skilled workforce they need to grow and expand in order to benefit both the economy and Northern Ireland plc.”
The minister has been champi-oning investment in ICT skills to bring more jobs to Ulster.