The partnership will see a development of a new range of interactive courses designed to help organisations and individuals upskill and become more data literate.

Currently being piloted by several UK companies, the Data Analytics apprenticeship is the first course to launch in the UK.

UK data literacy skills gap

According to a recent study by Nesta, investment in data skills could help boost UK productivity by 3%, equivalent to roughly one-fifth of the UK’s productivity gap. And, a separate report by PWC found that 69% of employers will demand data science and analytics skills from job candidates by the year 2021.

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The courses developed by Tableau and AVADO have been designed to include every worker, from school-leavers to business leaders. To make sure they have access to the relevant training that will equip them for the demands of an increasingly data-driven economy.

The data analytics apprenticeship program will offer training on data analytics and data visualisation techniques to students studying relevant courses, funded through the apprenticeship levy. Tableau will provide students with free software licenses, along with specific case-studies, practical exercises and an array of guest-speakers.

The partners aim to train over 3,000 new data analysts by 2020 through the apprenticeship programme. While this is impressive, it is still a relative drop in the required skills needed for the digital age.

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“The future competitiveness of UK PLC will increasingly be tied to the data literacy of its workforce,” said Mark O’Donoghue, CEO at Avado. “Whilst it’s not practical for all employees to be data scientists, it’s crucial that everyone can boast a good level of data literacy across the board. If data is the new oil, then creating a common language and enhancing understanding of how data can be best put to business benefit is a key objective for all organisations.”

“Quality data focused apprenticeships and top-up courses provide a practical and attractive route for businesses to access new talent and reskill current employees in an increasingly data driven environment. When it came to developing training programmes to satisfy this demand, we wanted to work with a leader in the space. Partnering with Tableau made absolute sense.”