The retail industry is not doing enough to attract data scientists, according to the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Speaking at the Retail Technology Show in London, Helen Dickinson said that retail offers a lot of opportunities for data scientists due to the amount of retailers in the industry, but this is not seen “from the outside.”

Retail offers workers the opportunity to progress, often without any qualifications, she told delegates, but added that retail is doing a "bad job at telling this story".

Dickinson said that the apprenticeship system needs to be examined to see how it can train more people and encourage them into the industry.

Tension with the government

Speaking about the upcoming elections, Dickinson said that policy making had become very short term and politically-driven. Organisations like the BRC have "ended up in a fight" over details when trying to engage with the government, she said.

“What we want from the next government, whoever it may be, is a different relationship,” she said.

AI bias

When asked about the role of AI in retail, Dickinson said that there are lots of benefits but expressed concern about some aspects of the technology.

“The idea that you can just handover responsibility to a language model that is going to answer all those questions without that oversight is the wrong answer,” she said.

The chief exec went on to say that there need to be people involved in monitoring AI systems and any overlays used.

“We would be lying to ourselves if we didn’t think that there is no bias in recruitment processes without AI, so the same risks are there,” she said.

The Retail Technology Show is taking place at Olympia London on 24 and 25 April.

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