Microsoft has announced it plans to offer free digital skills training for 30,000 UK public servants.

Microsoft has launched a free digital training scheme for public servants – Photo credit: Fotolia

The scheme is part of a wider national digital skills scheme the company has launched today, to help increase basic digital literacy in the UK.

Microsoft said that the public sector training scheme would help government organisations “deliver better, more efficient, more modern and transformative services to all people in the UK”.

It said that the move had been prompted by the results of its report into digital transformation, which found that just 35% of public sector respondents felt they had digitally literate leadership team.

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Meanwhile, the wider scheme will see an online training programme offered to increase basic digital literacy and a cloud skills initiative that Microsoft said would train 500,000 people in cloud technology skills by 2020.

“We believe a fourth industrial revolution is under way – one driven by the transformative power of cloud technologies,” said Microsoft UK chief executive Cindy Rose. The company last year launched its first UK-based data centre, aiming to increase the number of public sector cloud customers.

The company has also announced it plans to triple the number of digital apprenticeships that it runs with 25,000 UK-based partner companies, adding an addition 30,000 apprenticeships to the 11,000 it is currently running.

“Mindful of the company’s commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion within the tech sector, Microsoft aims to ensure higher proportions of women and minority groups are included and supported within these schemes,” the company’s statement said.

This article has been amended to correct a typographical mistake in the number of civil servants who would be trained in the scheme.