Against the backdrop of contemporary debates surrounding the public role of criminology, this article argues that a key barrier to ensuring that the next generation of criminologists is equipped with the skills necessary to engage in critical forms of citizenship, is the quantitative "skills gap" that undergraduate students possess as a consequence of the low curriculum profile afforded to numerically-informed forms of criminological practice. This article presents new empirical evidence examining students' statistical anxiety, which reinforces the need to increase their exposure to quantitative method teaching. It concludes that pedagogic change is necessary if we are also to address associated broader concerns about the future direction and rigour of the discipline.