In ordinary circumstances, a figure of £1.1bn – the headline-capturing amount the government announced last week to train “over 4,000” UK students in future technologies – wouldn’t be lamentable.
Yet, considering total public spending on education was £116bn in 2022-23, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies – down 8% from the 2010-11 figure – it smacks of a weak attempt to win some media coverage and votes in the looming general election.
In a global context, though, for all the noise generated around the AI Safety Summit last year, the UK is badly losing the race to equip the workforce with future-proof tech skills. More than a third of British digital SMEs say that a lack of technically skilled candidates is a major barrier to growth, according to a survey from the Federation of Small Businesses. Adding £1.1bn to an already depleted education fund masks short- and longer-term challenges....