UK Essential Digital Skills 2023

c.44.7 million (84%) UK adults have achieved the Foundation Level of digital skills

To achieve the Foundation Level, an individual must be able to independently do the eight tasks which make up the fundamental basics to getting online. Encouragingly, the level of UK adults with the Foundation Level has increased by 4 percentage points since 2022 (80%), suggesting that more people in the UK should be able to get online. This is increasingly critical as more and more services are becoming digitised. What’s even more encouraging to see is that amongst those aged 65+, the proportion who have the Foundation Level has increased from 54% in 2022 to 64% in 2023. Older people tend to be less digitally savvy, and with increased proficiency in the Foundation Level, will be more likely to engage in the increasingly online world.

Across the UK adult population, the Foundation task struggled with most remains to be setting up a connection to a Wi-Fi network. C.4.7 million (9%) UK adults are unable to do this. The risk of digital poverty and increased importance of free access Wi-Fi continues to be a concern. Last year it was reported that due to the rising cost of living, 14% of UK adults expected to have to look for a cheaper internet or mobile data plan to afford their other bills – in 2023, it was found that 23% of UK adults actually did this in the last 12 months.

Digital skill is also measured through having Essential Digital Skills for Life (also known as Life EDS), which reflects having the range of online ability needed for your personal life e.g. ability to do tasks such as using search engines to find information, making and receiving video calls, or managing money and transactions online. 92% of UK adults have Life EDS, which has increased from 88% since 2022. There’s still room to grow in deepening this skill level as while 52% of UK adults can do all of the 26 Life tasks identified, there’s a further 29% who are on the cusp of being able to do all tasks (i.e. can do 22-25 tasks).

There’s digital upskilling in the workplace

The measurement of Essential Digital Skills for Work (also known as Work EDS) focuses on the online skills needed for the workplace, and is measured amongst those who are employed, as well as those who are not in paid work but are not retired. This allows a lens on digital capability applicable to workplace amongst a sample which may be looking for employment. 

82% of the UK labour force sample have Work EDS, an increase of four percentage points since 2022 (78%). The task with the highest level of ability is communicating in the workplace digitally using messaging applications such email, Microsoft Teams or WhatsApp, and on the other end of the scale the lowest ability is for being able to improve productivity using digital tools like Trello, Microsoft Projects Planner or Slack. While there is improvement in the ability to do each of the identified Work tasks, a skills divide exists as those with a degree are more than twice as likely to have all 20 tasks than those with no formal education qualifications.

Outside of the EDS framework, it was also found that 40% of the UK labour force is considering learning new digital skills for work – the most popular of these being learning data analysis skills such as data science or artificial intelligence (16%). This is highly correlated with the industry worked in, as 65% of those in the technology industry are considering learning new digital skills, whereas it’s only 24% for those working in retail.

For more information find the full report here

Techinal note

Ipsos interviewed 4,172 participants aged 18+ years in the UK (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) via their telephone Omnibus. Data are weighted to represent the UK population in terms of age, social grade, region and working status within the gender variable and additional profiles on tenure and ethnicity using PAMCo data. Data are further weighted on device ownership using data derived from a robust national survey. Within this report we have included population estimates from the survey data based on ONS 2021 mid-year stats for the UK. Full details of the range of extrapolation based on the survey margins of errors, are available in the full report.