More degrees should be Skillset-accredited, says Wilson

Tiga CEO Richard Wilson has told GamesIndustry.biz that he would like to see more of the videogames-related degree courses in the UK accredited by Skillset, in order to breed a greater confidence in their quality.

"I do think that with such a small proportion of university courses accredited by Skillset, I think it's four [out of about 80], is extremely low," he said. "But I would like to see more of them accredited by Skillset, so that both the people studying them and those that would employ them from university can have confidence that they are good degrees."

But he was less concerned about the generally-accepted percentage of games graduates going on to get a job in the industry, stating his belief that it's likely people were finding jobs elsewhere.

"I think it's around 30 per cent of people on accredited courses go straight into jobs, and if that's accurate it strikes me as being fairly low, but I think it would be interesting to do a comparison between people that take games-related degrees at university and, for example law courses, and see what proportion of people there are going on to a career in law," he said.

"Of course a degree is a degree, and you can use it in many different sectors, and one would hope that people who go into higher education don't simply learn skills that are vocational in nature - that they have to go into one particular industry. Hopefully they're equipped with skills that allow them to go into a variety of different industries.

"But on the positive side, if there are about 80 different courses offering some kind of a degree in videogames, I think in principle that's pretty good. I'm in favour of competition, and I think it's good that the consumers, the students, have a variety of choices to study."

Wilson also believes that in the future there would be more positions in the UK games industry available to graduates as part of a long-term trend.

"I think more and more jobs will become open to graduates actually, I think it's quite a long-term trend," he told GamesIndustry.biz. "Despite tuition fees, people want to go to university to get a degree - not simply in our industry but throughout the British economy, because it's seen to be almost something like an educational rite of passage.

"And I suppose if more and more people get degrees, and that's the qualification of choice on the part of the student, in some respects it probably would encourage games developers - and employers more generally - to fill positions with graduates.

"I think it's almost a natural impact on the supply of labour."

The full interview with Richard Wilson is available now, as part one and part two.