To overcome today’s challenges, businesses and governments increasingly adopt cloud solutions as they need the latest technologies. This means a growing demand for qualified cloud professionals is outstripping even supply. To bridge this gap, cloud solution providers are helping to meet the demand for people with technical and digital skills. Research by Gartner shows that worldwide spending on public cloud services is expected to grow from $490 billion in 2022 to more than $1 billion by 2026, an annual growth rate of 20 per cent.

Indeed, we know that technology permeates the world we live in: we rely on it for every activity in our daily lives. But while the demand for skilled workers is high, the supply is low. According to Draup, there are five million unfilled roles in the cloud, with plenty of room for new ones to fill these vacancies. To achieve this goal, free digital skills training programs are available.

Among them, AWS re/Start enables companies across EMEA to hire young, highly skilled staff. For example, Capgemini has found the people coming out of this path valuable. AWS re/Start is an inclusive program established in 2017 dedicated to students from diverse groups, including women, disadvantaged communities, and low-income people. The program is available in more than 180 cities across 60 countries. It is part of AWS’s broader efforts to provide free cloud skills training to 29 million people globally by 2025, regardless of background, gender, gender, origin, or education.

Why focus on tech talent

The program offers in-person or online delivery and equips participants with the skills to pursue a career in the cloud. Individuals enter the program with little or no experience and gain the technical skills needed to fill entry- or mid-level cloud roles through coursework and practical case-based labs. In addition, students develop professional skills to prepare for employer meetings and interviews. Gallup and Amazon Web Services (AWS) collaborated on extensive research after interviewing more than 30,000 workers and 9,300 HR managers in 19 countries.

Gallup and AWS’s research illustrates the benefits companies can reap from investing in digital skills, particularly in growth and innovation. In fact, the study highlights how advanced digital skills can generate about $4.2 trillion in annual GDP in the 19 countries included in the study. Moreover, considering the significant benefits that workers with advanced digital skills experience in terms of pay, job security and overall quality of employment, it is unsurprising that most respondents express interest in expanding their digital skills. For example, in Italy, 73 per cent of digital workers would like to be trained in at least one of the 26 digital skills listed in the study.

From Cloud Services to new skills experience

Workers who acquire advanced digital skills realize benefits beyond higher wages. Nearly three out of four workers with advanced digital skills (72%) express high job satisfaction. This is especially significant compared to workers’ satisfaction with basic digital skills, who reported being very satisfied in only 43% of cases. “Analyzing the program and what they were studying, it was immediately clear that students were being taught about programming languages such as Python. They were learning about operating systems, including Linux, and they were being introduced to new technologies such as Kubernetes,” says Richard Bull, Vice President of Cloud Infrastructure Services at Capgemini. “This made the program very interesting because we were recruiting people with the skills needed to be competitive in today’s digital marketplace.”