The most common skills gaps are for: communication skills; customer handling; and technical and practical skills.  Some key statistics:

• England – 24% of passenger transport companies reported a skill gap, compared with 30% across all sectors.
• Wales – 22% in sector, compared to 19% across the country
• Scotland –15% in sector, 16% overall
• Yorkshire and the Humber has the highest proportion of companies reporting a skill gap (33%), followed by London (26%)
• the other English regions report skill gaps in the range of 17% to 22%

Driving skills as most needed in their current workforce. Almost 3% of sole traders identified driving instruction as a key need, followed by basic IT skills (2%), and driving skills (1.5%).

30% of Scottish companies report professional IT skills as a gap.  General IT skills are an issue reported by 15% of companies in Wales.  In the Northern Ireland wider transport and communication sector there is a need for computer literacy skills (46% of companies).

Skill gaps in numeracy and literacy are higher in the passenger transport sector (24% and 25% respectively for England) than the figure for all sectors (21% and 22%).  In the North West, 56% of companies report gaps in numeracy and 42% in literacy.  The lack of basic IT skills is a particular issue for micro-businesses.

Driving skills are seen as the most significant future need, with 14% of large companies and 8% of micro-businesses reporting it as an issue which will become even more significant in the future.  Customer skills and communication are also seen as emerging needs for the future.

Source: GoSkills Skills Needs Assessment (stage 1) 2006a