Member Article

Marketing Agency MD Addresses Digital Skills Gap

“While on the surface, I work in a major financial city that is saturated with digital agencies, beneath this veneer there is a huge digital skills gap that needs to be bridged to facilitate the continuation of the city’s economic growth and streamline what is at present, a fragmentary approach to tech.”

Mark Mitchell, Managing Director of My Social Agency, knows all too well of how the EU lacks a level playing field across member states when it comes to digital abilities - this directly impacting on many digital marketing agencies and their ability to recruit the right talent in Yorkshire in order to match their clients’ requirements. In light of the European Commission’s Digital Single Market agenda, this was something the agency director was able to address with policy makers following an invitation to speak at EU Parliament in Brussels on the matter earlier in the month.

As a self-taught businessman, Mr Mitchell set up the company from scratch while travelling the world, with no start-up loan or investment. Now heading up a team of 11, he’s generated one client £1.5million from optimising their website, and continues to work with and target internationally recognised names.

He continued: “We need to be better equipped for the current and future demands of the IT and Tech industry against projections for 750,000 more workers with digital skills needed in our region by 2017. At present, however, certain techinical roles such as PHP development are in high demand and short supply. This means developers can command salaries which are out of sync with their competency level, leading to much work like this having to be fulfilled by contractors or outsourced, as opposed to PAYE staff.”

One of the pillars of success for the Digital Single Market would be to ensure greater conditions for the digital economy to flourish, such as improving accessibility of digital skillsets across member states. This would help SMEs in particular prosper in this highly competitive industry.

Supporting the agenda is Amjad Bashir, Conservative MEP for Yorkhire and the Humber, who says: “Completing the digital single is the biggest, best thing politicians could do to drive Europe’s economy forward. We understand that the job needs to be done quickly but done right. The digital sector in Yorkshire is vibrant, creative and entrepreneurial and has so much to offer as well as to gain from this project.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Laura .