The digital skills gap and the mismatch between employer needs and employee skills has major economic implications, potentially costing economies billions of pounds per year and impacting business productivity and individual career prospects.

A Lloyds Bank annual survey, commissioned by The Department for Education, found that 7.5m people – 18% of UK adults – lacked the essential digital skills that are needed for the workplace.

Large accountancy firms have been busy mapping their digital skills gap in order to attract, train and retain staff. Forvis Mazars, one of the top 10 UK accountancy firms, and Big Four firm PwC are two of the large firms working strategically to ensure its workforces are trained in critical digital skills.

Gary Watson, Digital Skills Lead at Forvis Mazars, says: “One of our key priorities was identifying the essential digital skills for the accountants of the future. Rather than attempting to cover every emerging technology, we strategically focused on the most critical areas – after all, chasing digital skills without direction can quickly become an endless pursuit.”

Forvis Mazars recognises that professional development needs to fit within the realities of a busy workload, Watson says. “Working with and for our clients naturally takes priority, so making time for training can sometimes be challenging. That’s why we took a focused approach, structuring learning opportunities in a way that integrates seamlessly into daily work without disrupting productivity.”

Digital Ninjas

The firm’s digital skills courses are designed under the banner of the Three IIIs (Interactive, Iterative and Independence) and tend to be relatively short, intensive courses focused primarily on Microsoft Excel, Microsoft365 Copilot and Power BI.

Two years ago, Forvis Mazars launched its global Digital Ninja training courses, including Excel Ninja, Power BI Ninja and more recently, Copilot Ninja. In the UK, in addition to specialised versions of these courses for the audit, tax and business support teams, it launched a Data Catalyst programme to help employees build on the basics and scale knowledge throughout the business. 

Critically, these courses are also designed to bring together different disciplines, such as audit and tax accounting, so that teams can work on real-life challenges (with the data anonymised) in a safe environment where they are encouraged to think creatively, learn from their mistakes and build an internal community of digital problem-solvers.

“We want to create an environment where people feel confident to experiment and keep refining their skills until they succeed. By fostering independence, we empower colleagues to seek out the training they need, using the resources we’ve made available,” Watson says.

AI focus

At PwC, the firm has designed its digital upskilling strategy around artificial intelligence (AI) and is delivering courses to its 27,000 staff via its one-stop shop ‘AI Elevation Studio’ as a central training platform. 

Asim Siddiqi, Technology Talent Leader and PwC partner, says: “We have a strategy to attract, retain and develop staff in the right technologies, to upskill the whole firm on technology and, at the moment, AI upskilling is the most important thing for us.”

PwC’s initial focus is on establishing a base level of understanding and usage, which then allows staff to engage in bespoke add-ons to different service lines. It caters for all levels of AI expertise and allows staff to learn at their own pace.

PwC bespoke large language model tools such as ChatPwC and Chat Assurance are used in specific lines of service, as well as other AI tools. The initiative aims to personalise learning, foster a competitive spirit and ensure responsible AI use.

Within PwC’s AI Elevation Studio there are different learning zones because “not everyone learns in the same way”, says Siddiqi. The aim is to apply the “gym concept to training your AI muscle” to develop.

Each member of staff has a personalised dashboard showing their current usage and how they rank against their peers, as well as how many courses they’ve completed. It also shows staff a history of their peaks of AI usage.

Crucially, metrics track the workforce’s AI usage, with a goal of 80% regular AI usage by the end of June. Siddiqi says the firm has reached a peak of 74%. Centralised control of the AI tools is also carefully governed to ensure responsible usage, with users having to request access to certain AI tools rather than it being automatically available.

“Before anyone can touch a generative AI (Gen AI) tool, they have to have completed a course that outlines about the risks of AI, explains what it is and has gone through information security elements. Responsible use of AI is vital,” Siddiqi says.

To make it easier for people who have not attempted to use any AI tools up to this point, PwC has also created 737 Gen AI champions, giving staff the opportunity to ask questions and seek help in navigating the training platform. 

In future, Siddiqi says the firm will be tracking people’s prompts and bucketing those prompts across effectively six potential use cases such as summarisation, report generation and review of reports, as well as data analytics to further personalise training.

For now, though, PwC’s AI training strategy is about encouraging staff to begin to use these new tools, which are all evolving rapidly. “We have to introduce an element of psychological safety here,” Siddiqi says. “Our people are quite risk averse so we just have to understand that and make sure that they don't feel pressured into using it and instead that they’re using it in the right way for improved client benefit or internal improvement.”

Benefits abound

Staff feedback has been positive so far both at PwC and Forvis Mazars, highlighting the benefits of the shifting approach to more individualised training and education and the freedom to test these new tools safely.

Fay Bordbar, Global Digital Skills Lead, Forvis Mazars, says: “We’ve seen real benefits through connecting people from different teams and different countries to help solve each other’s problems and share resources.”

Moreover, Bordbar says that even with conservative estimates, Forvis Mazars is saving at least €4.5m-worth of time each year thanks to its digital skills training.

“With innovation now advancing faster than people can realistically keep up, the ability to empower, support and upskill staff to confidently use new tools when needed is more important than ever,” Bordbar says. “Not only is this essential for staff retention, but it also plays a crucial role in fostering a culture of innovation.”

Digital skills training at firms has become crucial to their future ability to service clients and evolve themselves to navigate the new digital world order. Their approach for now seems balanced, safe and innovative, but can they ensure their progress keeps pace with the digital changes ahead?