Salesforce UK plans to create 100,000 new digital jobs

Salesforce UK has committed to ease Britain’s data and digital skills crisis with plans to bring more than 100,000 new jobs to the market over the next four years through a partnership with training provider QA.

At the heart of the initiative will be three apprenticeship programmes and a developer “bootcamp”, designed to boost the country’s digital skills and produce tens of thousands of graduates trained in Salesforce certifications.

IDC reckons the plan could potentially add over 100,000 skilled jobs, with Salesforce boosting its own ecosystem of customers and partners.

According to IBM, there are already one million unfilled jobs in the technology sector, while a recent Accenture report claimed the digital skills gap could cost the UK economy as much as £141bn in GDP growth promised by investment in intelligent technologies over the next ten years.

The pandemic has further exposed the skills shortage, with nearly half (45%) of tech workers reporting that their company is currently recruiting for tech-based roles, offering greater opportunities for those looking to retrain and upskill into the booming sector. QA, which specialises in Salesforce training, is aiming to bridge the gap by expanding its work with the company.

The “developer bootcamps” will be 12-week intensive courses that provide specialist skills required to design data models, user interfaces and security for custom applications as well as the ability to customise them for mobile use. The first boot camp is expected to start in March 2021.

The apprenticeship programmes will provide practical learning closely aligned to specific career paths, including service desk engineering, marketing and business analytics roles within the Salesforce ecosystem.

All three apprenticeships are available for immediate starts and both initiatives will be complemented by content from a Salesforce’s online learning platform, Trailhead, which allows participants to continue to develop their Salesforce skills after they have completed their programmes.

Salesforce EMEA chief technology officer Adam Spearing said: “We care passionately about developing the next generation of skilled professionals for our industry. The Salesforce ecosystem represents a growing opportunity and urgent need for talent within our customers, marketplace, partners and developers, and we want to kick-start the careers and pathways for young adults. We are excited to be partnering with QA to launch the Developer Bootcamp and Apprenticeship programmes.”

The move coincides with the appointment of Accenture’s technology lead Zahra Bahrololoumi to head up Salesforce’s UK and Ireland business. Bahrololoumi has spent more than two decades at the consultancy and has been her current since 2017.

She will take up the post of executive vice-president and chief executive and fills a role that has been vacant since former Jayne-Anne Gadhia stepped down in March after only seven months. Gadhia remains an advisor at Salesforce.

Former BT chief Gavin Patterson, who was hired last August as chairman of the EMEA region but is now president and chief revenue officer, said: “We are delighted to have appointed a business leader with the industry breadth and depth that Zahra will bring to the company.

“She’s an extraordinary executive with a passion for using technology to transform organisations and improve the state of our world.”