Four hundred JLR workers to embark on digital skills fellowship

Jaguar Land Rover is set to collaborate with tech start-up Multiverse in an effort to enhance its employees data skills.

Four hundred staff are ready to embark on a 15-month Data Fellowship course to bridge JLR’s data skills gap with additional groups launching each quarter.

The course covers topics including data modelling, analysis, Python, and Machine Learning, and will support the transition to working on the cloud.

The shortage of data skills is estimated to cost UK businesses £2bn a year, with 1 in 10 jobs requiring data expertise and 100,000 data positions unfilled.

Multiverse is aiming to offer an alternative to university and corporate training through apprenticeships. It now trains more than 8,000 tech, leadership and digital apprentices.

The move is part of JLR’s Reimagine strategy which focuses on electrification, digital services and data and aims to ensure its staff are upskilled to meet the needs of the business.

Clive Benford, JLR’s Chief Data Officer, said: “The automotive industry is rapidly changing to become digital and electric. The management and utilisation of increasingly high volumes of data in this new era will be central to Jaguar Land Rover’s future.

“We need to create a data-first mindset that will support our growth, enhance the customer experience, and increase the productivity and expertise of our teams.

“The business’ own digital transformation is already underway with software-over-the-air, which demonstrates the power of effectively harnessing data.

“The primary goal of our partnership with Multiverse is to empower all our employees to utilise data, gain insights from it and develop valuable solutions.”

Euan Blair, founder and CEO of Multiverse, said: “This ambitious and far-reaching programme is one of the largest data apprenticeship programmes ever launched in the UK, and will deliver world-class training in data to hundreds of people on an ongoing basis.

“Jaguar Land Rover’s investment in apprenticeships shows the premium placed on data skills and the power of apprenticeships to deliver impactful new skills into a business through applied learning.”