Official Statistics

DCMS Sectors Skills Shortages and Skills Gaps: 2019

Experimental Official Statistics - skills shortages (%) and skills gaps (%) in the DCMS sectors and sub-sectors for the year 2019

Documents

Details

Headline Findings

Skills Shortages

  • 21.4% of DCMS Sector vacancies were attributed to skills shortages (i.e. applicants did not have the right skills, qualifications and/or experience), lower than 24.4% for All Sectors.
  • 5.2% of DCMS Sector businesses have at least one skills shortage vacancy, compared with 5.5% of All Sectors.

Skills Gaps

  • 4.8% of the DCMS Sector workforce had skills gaps (staff judged to be not fully proficient in their role), slightly higher than 4.5% for All Sectors.
  • 13.2% of DCMS Sector businesses have at least one skills gap, the same as for All Sectors (13.2%).

About this release

This estimate is an Experimental Official Statistic used to provide an estimate of skills shortages and skills gaps in the DCMS sectors.

These statistics have been developed in response to the DCMS Outcome Delivery Plan, which includes a skills gap metric. This is the first publication of these statistics and covers the year 2019 (the most recently available data from the Department for Education’s Employer Skills Survey). They cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland but not Scotland; the Scottish Government published their own Employer Skills Survey in 2020.

Estimates are provided for DCMS sectors, sub-sectors and the Audio Visual sector. Breakdowns are provided by region (excluding Scotland) but disclosure control is applied where sample sizes were too low. The DCMS sectors are:

  • Civil Society
  • Creative Industries
  • Cultural Sector
  • Digital Sector
  • Gambling
  • Sport
  • Telecoms
  • Tourism

Further information is available in the accompanying technical document along with details of methods and data limitations.

Release date

20 January 2022

Feedback

DCMS aims to continuously improve the quality of estimates and better meet user needs. DCMS welcomes feedback on this release. Feedback should be sent to DCMS via email at [email protected].

The UK Statistics Authority

This release is published in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics (2018) produced by the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA). The UKSA has the overall objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. It monitors and reports on all official statistics, and promotes good practice in this area.

Pre-release access

The accompanying pre-release access document lists ministers and officials who have received privileged early access to this release. In line with best practice, the list has been kept to a minimum and those given access for briefing purposes had a maximum of 24 hours.

Contact

Responsible statistician: Rishi Vaidya

For any queries or feedback, please contact [email protected].

Updates to this page

Published 20 January 2022

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