The most commonly desired skills in Cumbria have been revealed in a recent report.

The briefing from the Cumbria Intelligence Observatory revealed that communication, planning, sales and mathematics were among the skills most requested by local employers.

The statistics looked at the skills that were mentioned most often in online job listings in the period from August to October 2015, and split them into ‘baseline’ and ‘specialised’ skills.

The most mentioned baseline skills were communication (984 mentions, 30 per cent of all postings with skills specified) and planning (411, 12 per cent).

The most mentioned more detailed skills were sales (250, 8 per cent) and mathematics (181, 6 per cent).

The figures also reflect the importance of the nuclear industry on the county, with 3.7 per cent of jobs requiring a ‘nuclear industry background’.

There have been fears that the proposed nuclear new build at Moorside will create a huge skills gap in Cumbria, with thousands of skilled workers needed for the project.

Link: http://www.in-cumbria.com/Businessman-issues-fresh-warning-over-skills-shortage-time-bomb-f137de70-e0ad-46e3-a89a-212a34bad3e9-ds

Other skills that were highly desired by employers were customer service (341, 10 per cent). computer skills (291, 9 per cent) and procurement (176, 5 per cent).

Amongst the report’s other findings, it emerged that there were 9,495 jobs posted in the county this quarter, almost double the amount compared with the same period last year,

The area with the most job postings was Carlisle with 2,582 (37 per cent) and the most popular industry was accommodation and food services with 1,421 (25 per cent).