Discover our new digital skills report
We're pleased to share our No One Left Offline report, revealing the findings from our recent digital skills assessment campaign. Thank you to everyone who participated – your responses have helped us better understand the UK’s digital skills gap.
Our findings revealed that 1 in 5 respondents lack the essential digital skills needed to fully engage in today’s world, amongst other key insights. Download the report below to explore our findings and discover how we can close the digital divide together.
What is No One Left Offline?
Everyone deserves access to digital resources and opportunities, which is why we've launched our new campaign – to bridge the digital divide and ensure no one is left offline.
Explore the wider campaign below, including information on how you can progress your digital skills, advice from digital sector experts, our feature film, and information on how you can progress your digital skills.
Are digital skills essential in 2025?
Is having digital skills essential in today's world? Which digital skills are the most important? And crucially, how might people without these skills be impacted in their day-to-day lives?
We took to the streets of Newcastle to ask the public these very questions – as well as asking them to rate their own digital skills on a scale from 1-10.
Hear their responses in this video!
Progressing your digital skills
If you're looking to advance your digital skills, there is probably more help out there than you realise!
Our Essential Digital Skills qualifications (EDSQ) are funded qualifications mapped to national standards for essential digital literacy – you can find out more about them here.
Read our FAQs to discover more about the options available to improve your digital skills, your legal entitlement to free, fully-funded digital courses, and where you could study a digital qualification.
We're delighted to announce that we're now a signatory of the Workforce Digital Skills Charter, an ambitious initiative designed to address the growing digital skills gap within the UK workforce. By signing the charter, which was recently launched by FutureDotNow, we've pledged to actively raise awareness of this urgent issue.
We've joined forces with over 100 cross-sector organisations – including Lloyds Bank, M&S, and PwC – to drive impactful change nationwide. You can find out more information here.
Discover what our experts have to say
New report finds 1 in 5 lack the digital skills needed for modern life
The No One Left Offline report, part of NCFE’s wider campaign to close the digital skills gap, found that significant portions of the population, particularly younger people and older adults, are struggling with basic digital tasks.
Read the article
From awareness to action: tackling the UK's digital skills deficit
Did you know half of UK adults lack essential digital skills? Liz Williams MBE, Chief Exec of FutureDotNow, outlines how their Workforce Digital Skills Roadmap is uniting industry, government, and civil society to tackle this issue.
Read the article
No One Left Offline: understanding your employees’ digital skills
As NCFE launches a new campaign to raise awareness of the importance of digital skills for navigating today's world, David Redden, Digital Skills Specialist, explains why employers must think about their workforce’s skills.
Read the article
Why English, maths and digital skills are equally important in today's world
David Redden, Digital Skills Expert at NCFE, delves into the importance of digital literacy in today’s world and explores why digital skills are becoming the third essential core skill alongside English and maths.
Read the articleWhy essential digital skills matter
We launched our No One Left Offline campaign to highlight the importance of digital skills needed to navigate the modern world. This includes professionally, such as applying for jobs and using digital tools in the workplace, as well as in everyday life, including staying safe online, understanding your digital footprint, and carrying out tasks such as banking or booking a GP appointment.
Data from FutureDotNow's The Essential Digital Skills Gap report tells us that:
- 21.7m working-age adults can't complete all digital tasks essential for today's workplace
- 54% of the labour force are missing digital basics around safety, productivity and more
- 1.9m working-age adults cannot complete any of the essential digital work tasks.
Furthermore – and possibly, contrary to belief – the digital skills gap affects every industry (27% of people working in the tech sector don't have all 20 tasks), every region (at least 50% of the UK workforce cannot complete all 20 essential digital tasks for work) and every age group (even across 18-24 year-olds, almost half can’t do all 20 tasks.)
Working together, we hope that our campaign raises awareness and encourages individuals to learn and develop their essential digital skills.
Today, over half of working age adults can’t perform all 20 digital tasks industry and government agree are essential for today’s workplace.