Missing Data: Understanding UK firms’ investment in and use of new digital technologies at work

We have access to ever-increasing amounts of digital data. Yet we know little about how digital technologies are transforming employers’ work practices in British firms. This is because we lack representative, reliable data about these practices at the organisation-level. Existing data tend to:

draw from independent consultancy projects and reports; be relatively narrow in scope or rely on potentially biased online surveys; have a focus on larger organisations at the forefront of digital innovation (this gives little insight into the extent to which digital technologies are being used in smaller and medium sized businesses); offer little information about human resources and the impacts on workers.

This commentary examines the limitations of existing employer-level datasets and the challenges for policymakers attempting to steer the digital transformation of work in the absence of a rigorous evidence base.

Digit’s new representative, employer survey of digital practices at work aims to fill this evidence gap. It will show the extent to which new digital technologies are being adopted, and how they are being used and adapted, by a wide range of UK employers.