Location Data Scotland: Geospatial Skills Roadmap

Geospatial is flourishing with growing interest across a range of sectors and government. But can we meet the future demand for skilled professionals?
Location Data Scotland (LDS), the University of Edinburgh and the Association for Geographic Information in Scotland have been working in partnership to explore the Scottish geospatial skills landscape to assess whether there is a geospatial skills shortage and if so, how it could be addressed.

Jointly supported by Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and the Geospatial Commission, Location Data Scotland (LDS) was established to connect, inform and facilitate collaboration between industry, academia, public and third sector, across multiple sectors, to drive innovation, unlock skills and enable economic growth through the better use of location data.
For some years it has been suggested that employers in the geospatial sector have both struggled to grow their workforce and retain existing staff given the large number of positions available and the limited supply of graduates. However, this was very much anecdotal information and given the remit of LDS to support growth and Scottish Government’s ambition to ensure Scotland is recognised as an international hub for the geospatial industry, a skilled workforce is necessary to support this aspiration. Therefore, through our collaboration we sought to validate the skills challenges and consider how these could be addressed to future proof the industry.