The UK has been ranked 45th in the world for technology and business skill proficiency – one place below Honduras and one above Hungary.
Despite government-backed efforts to make the UK a science and technology superpower by 2030, with multi-million pound investment in AI flagged in budget announcements since 2022, research from online learning platform Coursera, which draws on data from 109 countries, has found the country lagging behind.
The results are a mild improvement on 2023 when the UK ranked 64th. But in 2022 the country was 38th. Comparable countries within the European Union have performed significantly better, with Germany third, the Netherlands fourth, France fifth, Sweden sixth and Spain seventh.
Switzerland came in first place on the global ranking, and European countries occupied 17 of the top 25 places.
The highest ranking Asian countries were Japan (2nd), Singapore (12th) and South Korea (16th). China was 36th and India 87th. The latter country, however, was making giant strides in improving access to digital skills despite sociocultural obstacles, noted the study.
The Asia Pacific region as a whole, led in digital literacy with 49.2 million learners representing 3.9% of the working population.
Meanwhile, developing economies such as Brazil (19th) continue to rise in the rankings. The UK’s struggles to upskill were exceeded by the US, which was 69th.
The Coursera data revealed rapid growth in AI course enrolments – a 1,060% year-on-year increase. While the UK has seen a 961% increase in AI upskilling in the past 12 months, it has seen a lower uptake than the global average, and lags behind the US (1,058%).
In Brazil there has been a 1,079% year-on-year increase in AI course enrolments.
Away from AI, the UK’s individual business (53%), tech (59%) and data science (72%) scores lagged behind European counterparts like Germany, France and Spain (93%, 96%, 97%) respectively.
Health technology were two areas of particular interest to UK learners, with bioinformatics and epidemiology the top two UK skills.
Despite myriad cyberattacks on businesses in Europe, enrolments on cyber security courses were down in the region by 5% year on year.
As learners turn to micro-credentials to gain the practical, job-ready skills needed to succeed in the digital economy, the UK has seen a 59% year on year growth in professional certificates.
Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO, said that with so many jobs at stake it was vital for UK’s institutions and leaders to prioritise upskilling “to remain competitive in the AI age”. Two-thirds of jobs “may be exposed to some degree of automation” he said.
Maggioncalda acknowledged that while skill rankings were crucial, they were not the sole indicators of advancement. He said: “There are several countries that have witnessed a surge in new learners coming online for the first time, including those with basic skills. It may reduce their ranking in the short term, but it signals major strides towards a digitised workforce. Institution-led initiatives are expected to boost the nations’ skills rankings as more individuals gain access to essential skills.”
The findings were from Coursera’s 2024 sixth annual Global Skills Report, which, says the firm, draws on data from over 148 million learners and 7,000 institutional partners from 109 countries to identify skill proficiency trends. This data is combined with third-party indicators, including the global innovation index, labour force participation rate, human capital index, and GDP per capita.
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