The rewiring of the UK state – known as the Machinery of Government changes – has profound implications for reskilling the UK workforce to handle accelerating change, especially in the cyber and digital domains. Understanding their likely impact requires examining how they might affect the four scenarios outlined in the HEPI report New Choices: rapidly advancing Scenario 1, overlaid with implicit Scenario 4 (research concentration) and nascent elements of Scenario 3 (place-based tertiary system) without coherent transition provisions.
As noted in a TES article on the machinery changes, universities have been left without a clear home, forcing them to build their own roles in the sector topology described on page 23 of New Choices. What is not covered in current commentary is how those homes are likely to be dictated by major employers who dominate STEM recruitment – including cyber and digital – and who spend far more on research with partners like Stanford, MIT, and Cambridge than research councils do. These employers may decide to help government create UK talent pipelines, or they may find it easier to think globally.
Historical Divide: Programmers vs. Systems Analysts
Sixty years ago, the Labour government created a National Computing Centre (NCC) in Manchester to encourage computer usage and ensure necessary education. One of the NCC's first activities was to organise training in systems analysis to identify where and how new technologies could be used. Another was research into testing staff for aptitudes for systems analysis or programming. It was quickly identified that the aptitudes for good systems analysts and programmers were different. Good programmers tended to be mediocre at systems analysis, and good analysts rarely adequate at programming.
However, the runaway success of the NCC aptitude testing service for programmers – promoted widely by computer companies running training schools – and the NCC Systems Analysis course, used to cross-train accountants and work study engineers, masked this difference. By the time of decimalisation in 1971, most new computer departments were staffed by people recruited for their ability to learn to programme rather than understand user needs and design systems. An MSc dissertation at London Business School, later published as a ten-part series in Computer Weekly in 1973, identified the consequences.
The subsequent rise of computer science as an academic discipline exacerbated the divide between those who believe digital technology is the answer and the rest of the population. The result is a chronic shortage of people with soft skills – those more interested in how technologies like data analytics and AI can better address human needs than in the technology itself.
Current Trends in Education and Careers Guidance
The UCAS "Choose your future" site, accessed by most school leavers, indicates geographic and social divides. The 30th June UCAS application data shows that year-on-year growth in applications for undergraduate engineering and technology degrees has accelerated to over 16%. In parallel, applications to study computing have fallen at nearly 10% per annum, compound, since peaking in 2024. Applications to medicine, nursing, and related subjects, which had been falling or stagnant after a Covid peak, recovered sharply this year after a collective overhaul of relevant career guidance on the UCAS website, now including a sponsored NHS careers section.
There is a need for more cyber and digital guidance like "Defy the Limits" that goes beyond technical roles decimated by automation. We must attract those interested in using data analytics and augmented intelligence to identify needs and generate solutions – the modern equivalent of systems analysis. The Digital Policy Alliance 21CN Skills group plans to work with UCAS and Cynam to support a collective overhaul of relevant careers guidance.
Impact of Machinery of Government Changes
The machinery changes include: local economic growth and devolution strategy moving to Number 10 North; Cabinet Office responsibility for AI to transform the public sector, the AI Security Institute, and the One Gov Delivery Agency; social values procurement moving to DCMS alongside Government Digital Service and ID policy; the Investment Security Unit moving to DBIST; the Public Sector Fraud Authority moving to DWP; DCMS hosting GDS and ID policy arms-length from One Delivery and Government Recruitment; and DBIST taking over science and technology funding as part of a reindustrialisation agenda.
Digital skills policy – including digital inclusion – is implied to transfer to DCMS, separated from science and technology, AI skills policy, and mainstream careers advice. Or social values procurement may be used to pull through place-based, employer-driven local skill improvement plans co-ordinated via Number 10 North. The question is whether moving digital skills to DCMS, AI skills to Number 10, and devolution policy to Manchester makes building bridges and addressing place-based cyber/digital skills shortages harder or easier. Those shortages are meaningless until unpacked into demand for sector-specific hybrids and issues of quality, relevance, security clearance, and geography – less than half of vacancies are for hybrid or remote working, and geographic mobility is harder than since the 1970s.
There has long been a divide between the skills activities of cyber/digital communities, which regarded themselves as special, and mainstream careers advice from LEPs to local skills partnerships. Earlier this year, programmes like CyberFirst and TechFirst were about to expand in co-operation with the Careers and Enterprise Company, Boards for Education, and STEM Ambassadors to reach most teenagers. But few digital/cyber employers are among the 15,000 employers working with recruitment agencies via the Better Hiring Institute and Association of Recruitment Technology Providers.
The Way Forward: Hybrid Skills and Place-Based Strategy
A similar sea change is occurring in cyber security: the attitudes and aptitudes sought have shifted with the need to target real-time data analytics to track and trace suspect transactions, co-ordinated across regulatory boundaries by those with hybrid skills including language, discipline, and culture. We need to engage those already wanting to create different talent pipelines at all levels, locally and nationally.
The immediate aim of a planned workshop on 8th October is to identify those willing to work together to ensure guidance on the UCAS website reflects the careers they wish to offer to school leavers and graduates. The question is whether to also invite professional bodies, trade associations, and policy advisors grappling with updating UK skills structures for a world where private sector employers are more interested in meeting US, EU, or ASEAN regulatory demands than UK-centric pipelines. It may be better to leave them out to produce results in time for next year's recruitment season, and instead offer a follow-up meeting in Manchester with Number 10 North on the role of departments and agencies in using social values procurement to ensure place-based skills improvement plans deliver future skills, with local access supported by university-based networks – the Janet and John strategy.
The machinery of government changes listed include the move of local economic growth and devolution to Number 10 North, Cabinet Office responsibility for AI, social values procurement to DCMS, investment security to DBIST, public sector fraud to DWP, and DCMS hosting GDS and ID policy. DBIST takes over science and technology funding to connect directly to businesses and workers driving growth, presumably in co-operation with local economic growth strategy now at Number 10 North.
It is not explicitly stated, but implied, that digital skills policy will be transferred to DCMS, away from science and technology and AI skills policy and mainstream careers advice. Alternatively, social values procurement may be used to pull through place-based, employer-driven local skill improvement plans co-ordinated via Number 10 North. The choices made in the coming months will determine whether the UK develops a coherent talent pipeline for cyber and digital skills or continues to rely on global recruitment, with profound implications for the future of the workforce.
Source: Computerweekly News