Computer Literacy Survey for The Prince's Trust

Culture

For the Prince's Trust, we surveyed 15-25-year-olds about their computer and internet related skills and how this has impacted their ability to find work.

 
New polling done on behalf of the Prince’s Trust by Ipsos highlights the skills and confidence gap between NEETs and their peers with computer related tasks. While young people appear to be confident in their skills with technology, there is some disparity between those in employment or education and those who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs).

Young people consistently rate their skills when using computers as good, particularly with social interaction but also with task based exercises:

  • 94% rate their skills as very or fairly good on mobile phones and 91% on desktop or laptop computers
  • 91% agree they know how to use Google and 55% have created word documents in the past year
On the whole, young people are familiar with job application processes:
  • 86% agree they can send their CV online if they need to and only 17% dread filling in online job applications

However, when looking at young people who are NEETs, these figures can change negatively compared to their counterparts in education or employment.

NEETs have lower rated abilities across the different technology platforms:
  • 83% of NEETs say their skills on desktop/laptop computers are good compared to 91% overall and 95% of those in education
NEETs have less confidence in computer related tasks than their counterparts:
  • They are twice as likely to not feel confident in creating a spreadsheet compared with those in education (24% not confident compared with 12% in education)

NEETs are more concerned with their IT skills regarding filling in online job applications and being able to use them in a job they want:

  • Whilst 80% of those in employment or education agree their IT skills are good enough to use in the job they want, only two thirds (67%) of NEETs agree
  • A quarter (24%) of NEETs dread filling in online job applications
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Technical note:

Ipsos conducted this research on behalf of the Prince’s Trust over the period 18th January- 15th February 2013. Fieldwork was conducted face to face with 15-25-year-olds in Britain (i.e. England, Scotland and Wales). We spoke to 1,378 15-25-year-olds and data was weighted on gender, region, social grade, age, working status, tenure and ethnicity to match the proportions found in the general population.

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