Today, especially with the global economy moving into unchartered waters, talent underpins not only our ability to compete successfully on the global stage, but our ability to deal with and master the major issues for our generation: climate change, social inclusion and market innovation. This is the ‘triple context’ that the Tomorrow’s Global Talent report describes.

The demand for talent is not new. The need to recruit and retain the best people has always been a key concern in any Board room. And, for me, the best people are those who have the ambition, ability and personality to acquire and re-use their skills at all and every level of our organisations.

What is new is the sheer scale of the challenge and the speed at which thing are changing. Today’s economy requires higher skill levels than a generation ago. The wider and wider use of technology across all industries, and the ease of work moving across borders mean that there will be fewer and fewer low-value-added, low skilled jobs.

This is reflected in the shift in global economic output. In 1980, the G7 countries produced half of the global output but by 2015 – and maybe sooner – they will account for only one third and China will be the largest economy in the world. And make no mistake, this will not be a sweatshop economy. China and India together are producing 4 million graduates a year.

Let me put the UK challenge into the context of BT. BT is a global communications services company with a turnover of £20bn a year. We employ some 106,000 people in 170 countries serving around 18 million customers. The talent we need can, and does, come from every corner of the world. Knowledge is the universal currency and

we can work together now without physical proximity – so that means we source our talent globally.

Many of those best talents do live in the UK and we should be very proud of them.

But many talents live somewhere else and we will incorporate them into what we do also – because it will make our business more competitive and more attractive to everybody who wants to buy from us.

It is very clear that the talent of today has no passport, no gender, no age. Talent is simply ‘talent’ and it can be contributed by all of us, and at every level in the business.

So if our skills base is not good enough now, it is certainly not good enough to cope with our need to build our economy over the next 10 years or so. By 2020 we will need 2 million new workers – mostly managerial and professional jobs. Yet on the other hand, we can expect to see ‘elementary occupations’ declining by a million.

The doomsday scenario is that by 2020 we could find ourselves with 6 million unemployable people in the UK.

We are certainly living in extraordinarily uncertain times. But it is clear to me that it is the commitment, productivity and ability of our people to add value that will keep us competitive. Now is the time, when markets are shrinking and order books falling, to lift our sights and grab this opportunity to invest in the talents and skills we need to ensure we emerge with intact business models that can drive long term growth in the UK.

Sir Mike Rake is the Chairman of BT and UK Commission for Employment and Skills. This is a UK-wide Non Departmental Public Body which reports to eight sponsors in total along with the governments/administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.