Coursera '20 Global Skills Index highlights urgent need for reskilling

Higher skill proficiency is linked to GDP growth, labor force participation, and income equality, according to Coursera's latest Global Skills Index. The report released today by the world’s leading online learning platform provides an in-depth look at the state of skills around the world. Looking across the 65 million learners on the platform, and drawing on rich performance data of learners in the past 12 months, the report benchmarks skills proficiency for 60 countries, 10 industries, and 11 fields of study in business, technology, and data science. The report also provides an early analysis of the pandemic’s impact on the skills landscape.

The pandemic has impacted the lives of more than 555 million workers and 200 million higher education students around the world. To revive jobs and economies, institutions must enable widespread access to skills development so that people can swiftly enter and return to the workforce. This requires understanding the state of job-relevant skills for their respective populations, including for their countries, industries, and fields of study. Equipped with insights from the report, leaders across private, public, and education sectors can shape reskilling efforts for economic revival. 

Through Coursera’s Campus Response Initiative and Workforce Recovery Initiative, there are already nearly 3,800 programs led by universities and governments in EMEA, to deliver free online learning. With 65 million learners on the platform, including 1.9 million learners in the UK, and more than 4,000 courses from the world's top universities and industry educators, Coursera has one of the largest datasets for identifying skill trends. The evolved methodology for GSI 2020 uses a patent-pending algorithm that more comprehensively accounts for selection biases.

Key insights from the data in the report include:

• While Europe is the global skills leader, especially in technical skills, the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in technology skills. Our data reveals European countries take all top ten spots in the GSI rankings for tech and data science skills, including 100% competitiveness for technology and data science skills in Russia. However, the UK lags behind the rest of the region—ranked 20th regionally in overall technology skills and 18th regionally in data science skills. 
• The UK is highly skilled in business, particularly in finance. Our data indicates the UK is competitive in overall business skills, ranking 19th globally and 13th in Europe. Within the business domain, the UK is also competitive in communications (51%) and management (71%), and cutting-edge in finance (80%).
• Countries with higher skill proficiencies are also those with higher labor force participation rates. Our data shows that a country’s skill proficiency across domains is positively correlated (56 percent) with the fraction of its working-age population active in its labor force. Data collected between February 2020 and April 2020 shows weakening employment rates in the UK, with male employees and self-employed seeing reductions (Secondary data: World Bank, Office of National Statistics)
• Countries with more equal access to the internet are also those with higher skill proficiencies. Our data indicates that there is a significant, positive correlation (65 percent) between a country’s skill proficiency across domains and the percentage of its population using the internet. Currently, 10% of households in the UE and 4% in the UK don’t have internet access. (Secondary data: World Bank, Statista)
• Every skill proficiency percent gained for a country is associated with a $600 increase in GDP per capita. (Secondary data: World Bank)

Other UK-specific industry data:

• The consumer goods industry in the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in technology skills despite fast digitisation required for the pandemic. Our industry data reveals the consumer goods industry in the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in technology skills with a 23% skills proficiency.

• The healthcare industry in the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in technology skills with less than 9 percent skills proficiency. Our industry data reveals the healthcare industry in the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in technology skills with a 8% skills proficiency.

To download the full report, visit coursera.org/gsi.

About Coursera

Coursera was founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng with a vision of providing life-transforming learning experiences to anyone, anywhere. It is now a leading online learning platform for higher education, where 65 million learners from around the world come to learn skills of the future. More than 200 of the world’s top universities and industry educators partner with Coursera to offer projects, courses, Specialisations, certificates, and degree programs. 2,500 companies trust the company’s enterprise platform Coursera for Business to transform their talent. Coursera for Government equips government employees and citizens with in-demand skills to build a competitive workforce. Coursera for Campus empowers any university to offer high-quality, job-relevant online education to students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Coursera is backed by leading investors that include Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates, Learn Capital, and SEEK Group.