Impact

Data Skills for Work 2019-2026

Reflecting on seven years of project delivery and upskilling for inclusive growth

Data Skills for Work was set up as an upskilling and reskilling program to help people in the workforce, gain key data skills to help them participate in the changing world of work. The program was about helping adults - and particularly those who are experiencing barriers to training and job progression due to gender, ethnicity or disability – improve their data and AI literacy and gain confidence.

Through the program, we helped learners optimise their digital skills for data driven innovation through series of products, and services that were available to learners in Edinburgh & South East Scotland, and more recently in the Tay Cities region. This included:

  1. The formation of a data skills framework, to help identify key skills across the workforce to enable data literacy and support organisations towards data driven decision making.

  2. The establishment of a data skills credits scheme - small grants funding to help learners access training that was free at the point of access for those in our target groups, including women ethnic minorities disabled workers, and those are in jobs at risk of redundancy because of automation.

  3. A data skills portal that listed training offered by training providers, colleges universities and others which is searchable under the identified skills and competencies of our data skills framework to help learners find training that’s right for them through clear signposting.

  4. Finally, to support data adoption in organisations, we developed leadership training to help leaders and managers identify and plan for skills improvements to support data driven decision making.

Data & AI Skills Framework

The Data Skills Framework (now known as the Data & AI Skills Framework) was first established in 2020 and was updated and relaunched at DataFest 2025 with Scot Govt endorsement.

  • We surveyed 550 leaders to understand skills gaps in Scotland

  • We published a whitepaper, which has had over 100 downloads

  • We embedded the framework into the TDL core skills programme in July 2025, since then we have seen 234 Data & AI Professionals and Leaders benefit from our industry aligned skills programmes.

Data Skills Credits

We launched our Data Skills Credits scheme in 2020. Small grants to support individuals experiencing barriers to work or upskilling to access training for free.

  • Since then we have worked with 40 trusted training providers to deliver 145 training courses to 1,702 learners in our target groups including women (67%), ethnic minorities (23%) and people with a disability (10%)

  • Career Progression (8%), job entry (15%), job retained (45%) and qualifications (32%) are the most common outcomes that people reported after participating in training,

  • Gaining new skills is important, but our scheme also increased confidence in the use of data - this is really impactful because it means people go on to undertake further training or they feel that they have the confidence to apply for a job with more of a data element in it.

  • Total funding received: £300k core (DDI) and £485k leveraged (through Scottish Government & Tay Cities)

Data Adoption

Courses and workshops designed for leaders and managers to understand the potential for the use of data within their business, develop an understanding of their data skills needs to drive value, and how to develop or source the right mix of skills to deliver. 

  • People Power Data (PPD) workshop developed for leaders & managers (benefitting 186 SME and charity leaders in 2021-22)

  • Module embedded into TDL Leadership Programme in 2022-23 (54 attendees, 3 cohorts)

  • PPD Online Course developed (52 completions in 2022/23 and 2023/24), course retired in 2025

  • In person workshop developed from new Data & AI Skills Framework (delivered to 200 event attendees across 4 events in May 2025)

  • Upskilling for an AI Powered Future workshop delivered as part of SG funded National AI Adoption Programme to 35 SMEs in Oct 2025

Data Skills Portal

Although largely a project archive now, the Data Skills for Work website was originally set up in 2020 as a one stop shop for data skills course listings, funding opportunities, news, case studies and resources, including the original DSW framework.

Courses that we funded through data skills credits and other offerings from our trusted network of training and education partners were listed and tagged to the skills, competencies and personas of the skills framework, so learners could find training that was at the right level for them.

  • In Oct 2020 we launched our Skills Portal, with courses and resources mapped to our framework to help learners find appropriate training and support, including our Demystifying Data Video Series.

  • Around 9,000 people have accessed the portal since launch

  • Our collaboration with Inkpath in 2021-2023 helped us embed our framework into an app - gamifying the learning process, creating an experience like a ‘fitness tracker for skills’. This collaboration ended in 2023.

  • Reduction in funding and staff resource means the portal has now become a project archive