UK Music has launched an online industry-wide skills audit in a bid to evaluate and anticipate potential skills gaps across the commercial music sector.

Accessible via the UK Music and Music Week websites, the audit will run until the end of June and will help meet some of the recommendations on skills and training made in the recently published Liberating Creativity.

These include:

• that existing music companies, particularly micro-businesses, have the requisite skills to effectively compete in the current commercial music market

• to ensure music companies can attract a diverse and highly-skilled incoming workforce

• that Government adopt successful industry-run apprenticeship schemes

• that further and higher education music business courses can meet standards established by an industry accreditation programme

• that industry will develop an industry wide diversity code of practice

UK Music chief executive Feargal Sharkey says improving access to skills and training was one of the key recommendations made by UK Music in Liberating Creativity and for the long-term development of the commercial sector, it is crucial that existing companies, and particularly micro-businesses, can survive and compete in an ever-evolving digital marketplace.

He adds, “It is equally vital that those young people who aspire to work in our industry are diverse, highly-skilled and have under their belts a wide range of practical experience.”

Sharkey adds that the skills audit is a first step to achieving this goal. “To take a snapshot of where the industry is in 2010, and where we need to go in the next decade. I know the members of UK Music are fully behind this, and I urge all those from freelancers to CEOs to take ten minutes to complete this survey.”

The initiative has already attracted support from across the industry.

Aim chief executive and chairman Alison Wenham says changes across the industry have meant that everyone’s roles have been altered to one extent or another. “New skills are needed in the digital age. If we can guarantee that all those working in the business receive the level of training they need and deserve, we can guarantee the future success of the industry,” she adds.

Sony Music Entertainment chairman Ged Doherty adds, “The most valuable asset of any company is its people. We hope this audit will inform a clear skills agenda and help identify areas where we can work together to champion and support further skills development throughout our industry.”

The survey can be accessed via: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DQC6RJ6 or Music Week’s website.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1041014&c=1