City must fix training and culture to beat skills crisis, says report
Financial services firms face a staffing crisis if they do not improve workplace culture, purpose and diversity and better train their existing employees, a Treasury-commissioned report has found.
The City has been left struggling to adapt as the top graduates are increasingly choosing the tech sector over financial services and the changing nature of the banking industry requires workers to quickly develop new skills.
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A major part of the problem, the report from the Financial Services Skills Taskforce found, is that students do not see the finance sector as creative and dynamic. Prospective workers are also put off by a growing perception that finance does not benefit society.
On top of this, the City struggles to keep its current workers well-suited to jobs that are increasingly disrupted by technology such as mobile banking. It has the third-lowest spend per employee and the second-lowest spend per trainee on training out of all the UK’s sectors.
The Skills Taskforce, launched by the Treasury in 2018 and convened by industry body The City UK, said that “strengthening the purpose and culture of the sector to ensure it remains attractive to future generations of talent” was a much-needed reform.
This would involve increasing diversity and making more of an effort to demonstrate the good financial services firms do in society.
Another much-needed reform is better “reskilling, upskilling and retraining staff while protecting and expanding employment in key regional and national centres,” the report said.
Mark Hoban, chair of the Taskforce and former City minister, said: “Only through coordinated and collective action by industry, the education sector and government can we bring about the necessary system-wide changes needed for UK financial services to stay competitive in a transformed digital marketplace.”
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City minister John Glen said: “Financial services are one of our great success stories – not just in London, but across the whole of the UK.
“Yet today’s report shows the industry needs to invest further in skills, boost diversity, and ensure we’re training the next generation of leaders and innovators.”