Supporting pathways to develop the next generation of geospatial specialists

It’s estimated that the geospatial sector will be worth £9bn by 2027, but analysis suggests there’s currently a skills shortage which could prevent these benefits from being realised.

Location Data Scotland (LDS) is a community established with the aim of unlocking geospatial skills and enabling economic growth in collaboration with industry and academia, alongside the public and third sectors.

I recently attended ‘Developing the Geospatial Skills Agenda’, an industry event held by LDS at the Scottish Government’s Victoria Quay building in Edinburgh.

The industry event was led by the University of Edinburgh and Fife College, who are developing the first geospatial skills course at college level. Representatives from The Scottish Government, Esri, Ordnance Survey and the British Geological Society attended, and it was a great opportunity to learn first-hand about how the industry is evolving to encourage new talent.

The next generation of geospatial

LDS used the event to present their geospatial skills roadmap, followed by a roundtable session to gather feedback from attendees.

The roadmap is broken down into the categories of engagement, communication and practical actions, each of which contain clear short-, medium- and long-term objectives to support future geospatial skills requirements in Scotland.

These actions include integration of GIS into the secondary school curriculum; raising awareness of GIS as a career option for both those of school-age and considering a career change; and being consistent in the naming of the sector (are we GIS, or geospatial, or spatial data science?).

This is valuable because it demonstrates the commitment of LDS and its representatives to preparing the next generation of geospatial specialists, ready to meet industry needs and unlock the value of spatial data.

The second half of the event comprised a group discussion about the roadmap and skills pathways. We considered how to prioritise the actions within the roadmap, how the organisations participating in LDS can engage with education, and what geospatial skills the industry considers to be essential.

Some of the key outcomes and suggestions revolved around the importance of visualisation and story telling alongside coding skills, and offering GIS as a career for those who display an aptitude for problem solving and analytics.

SYSTRA’s role in supporting future skills

For SYSTRA, involvement in LDS and related communities such as the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) Scotland presents an opportunity to influence the development and actioning of the geospatial skills roadmap from an industry perspective, ensuring our future skills needs will be met.

These events are also good opportunities for networking and promoting SYSTRA’s presence in the GIS space; we will soon be recorded on the LDS Directory, which will allow us to find customers, suppliers, funding sources and partners.

Finally, connecting with relevant educational institutions could lead to opportunities for future students to gain work experience with us.

SYSTRA has a growing geospatial capability which is applicable to all sectors; everything happens somewhere. We provide spatial data analysis, spatial data capture, visualisation, workflow automation, spatial data advice and more. Our team has fed into projects involving analysis of the causes behind road collisions; development of engaging dashboards to display spatial data; and automated digitisation of utility maps.

Working alongside industry and education sector partners, our vision is to support the future generation to develop the skills required for efficient analysis and presentation of spatial data in ways which help our clients make data driven, evidence based decisions.