THE CEO of a British technology training firm and tech think tank has warned of a looming crisis facing UK laboratories.
Andy Lord the CEO of Credersi has warned that particularly those at the forefront of Covid-19 testing are at risk of a crisis due to a massive shortage of qualified and skilled lab technicians.
Mr Lord believes the skills shortage could severely impact Covid testing laboratories in a matter of months.
Speaking about a potential crisis he said: “At the moment, there are simply not enough trained and skilled lab technicians and quality assurance (QA) technicians across the UK.
“This is a particularly acute problem within the Covid testing laboratory sector, which is struggling to keep up with the increasing demands on the testing system.
“Laboratories are understaffed and some are at crisis point; they simply cannot get enough lab technicians and QAs through the doors and into key roles.
Mr Lord runs the Manchester head-quartered tech talent which is a training incubator and think tank producing data scientists, lab technicians, and software specialists.
“As lockdown restrictions are lifted in areas such as travel, the level of Covid testing will begin to rise rapidly.
“At the same time, if we continue to have further variant outbreaks, this will put even greater pressure and strain on the testing system.
“This will put the laboratories under severe pressure and ultimately into a crisis situation.
“This will result in test delays and a backlog in Covid tests being processed.
“The laboratories are a huge part of the UK’s armoury in tackling Covid, both with testing and vaccinations.
“The Government and the Prime Minister need to commit funding from the new Office for Science & Technology Strategy and light the fuses of the tech training providers in the private sector to make technology accessible to all.
“But most importantly, they need to allow the private sector to run with the baton and innovate a new generation of tech and lab-based talent, including data scientists.”
Credersi is not only developing future lab technicians, coders, testers and data scientists, but it is also doing it in a unique, immersive way using VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) technologies as a tech first in training campuses.
Credersi uses industry experts as lead instructors, all of whom are skilled practitioners in the subject matters that they teach.
This enables the “talent of the future” to gain fluency and capability across many platforms with real-world simulations and exercises. ?
Darren Coomer, an industry-leading CIO & Founder of the tech and digital consulting firm The Strategy & Architecture (S&A) Group adds: “Manchester is the second fastest growing tech hub in Europe.
“We believe that, through establishing Credersi here, we can leverage the culture this great city has to help train and inspire the next generation of innovators, technicians, scientists and engineers that our economy, and indeed the world, is crying out for.
“If anything, Boris Johnson needs to provide even greater funding for the tech sector in places like Manchester, which is the tech powerhouse and future for UK plc.
“Manchester was an innovator in the industrial revolution and today it is doing the same, leading tech hub innovation alongside London on the global stage.
“What we are doing with Credersi is not only disrupting education through our innovative training methods and technologies, but also converging curriculums such as science and tech to really meet the needs of individuals and industry.
“Our purpose is to train, inspire, incubate, develop and nurture, through our career alumni, some of the greatest minds and talents of the future.
“Alan Turing had long and established links with Manchester and the university, and we are looking to incubate and develop the Turings of the future; the code-breakers, vaccine developers, biological and cyber defenders, programmers and data scientists that can walk in his footsteps.”
