Across Australia, the need for urgent digital skills training is top of mind for most looking to grow their career, their income, or to try a different industry. Now, new research shows the appetite for digital skilling is stronger among women across the country.
Ahead of the Government’s Jobs and Skills Summit from 1-2 September, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has released research with AlphaBeta. The research found that Aussie women are more aware of the need for digital skills training – eight in 10 say they have realised the importance of digital skills training because of the pandemic. Their top motivations include the desire to improve productivity at work (54%) as well as to improve employability (40%).
Key findings include:
- In Australia, there is a gap between female (67%) and male workers (74%) who have undergone digital skills training since the pandemic, but female workers are more motivated to do so.
- More than half (55%) of female workers who have not undergone any training indicate that they want to do so within the next year; 14 percentage points higher than the share of men looking to start
- 88% of Australian workers surveyed in non-tech roles who have upgraded their digital skills are benefitting from greater efficiency:
- 60% reported increased promotion opportunities,
- 81% reported improved employability.
- 81% of non-tech workers and 66% of tech workers are not confident of their ability to meet future digital skill needs.
To help address the digital skills gap in Australia, AWS has launched the AWS Skill Builder Individual and Team subscriptions in Australia and New Zealand.
This new subscription service provides access to exclusive training, giving individuals and organisations more options to pick up vital cloud-related skills wherever and whenever they need.
It builds upon AWS’s existing Skill Builder digital learning experience with 500+ free, self-paced, digital courses, complementing the ongoing upskilling efforts in Australia. Since 2017, AWS has helped skill over 200,000 Australians with free cloud skills.
