By silicon.com, 21 July 2005 17:15
Too many IT workers are retiring from the industry and not enough graduates are coming up to replace them.
Outsourcing means companies won't need as many people with basic technical skills. Instead they will need more staff with business skills and job titles like architect or programme manager.
Signs like these of an IT skills crisis in the UK are nothing new. The industry has fretted over this topic for some time.
But rather than plunging it into despair, the news should give the industry a chance to pause and rethink how it deals with issues of training and career paths.
As the education system won't be able to churn out qualified graduates as quickly as companies will need them, in-house training and development will have to make a return.
There is a myth that investing in training is a waste of time because staff will just leave for better jobs when they've finished.
This is a short-sighted approach and one the industry must reconsider.
Of course there will be cases where people zoom off as soon as they have their qualifications. But for most people if a company invests to boost their skills, they will feel more valued and be more productive and loyal as a result. Which means saving on expensive, disruptive and time-consuming recruiting in the long run.
Added to this is the fact that too many people feel forced out of the IT workforce because they are told they are too old at 50 or even 40.
If business and management skills are going to be at more of a premium than niche technical skills, then companies should start considering the contribution that these experienced workers can make - and not assume they are fit only for the scrapheap.
A looming skills shortage could help the industry grow up. At the moment for too many IT is a job and not a career. The industry needs to think more carefully about building a career path for tech workers if we are to make it through the next skills drought.
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. Dave
I think the last sentence should have read drought. A skills draught would have a slightly different implication.
2. Karen Challinor
I've said this before I know but there is no skills shortage.
People are 'retiring' from the industry because of the following reasons
1 - frustration because their present company refuses to train them because they are too old
2 - they are too old to get a job elsewhere
3 - they were too high up the management chain to get a job elsewhere
4 - they are overqualified for a job elsewhere
- for overqualified read too old
- for too old read over 35 for women and over 40 for men
- for too high up the management chain read anything from team leader upwards
Try investing in the people you have before crying about a skills shortage
3. Alan T
The thinking summarised in this article kind of misses the point that we are in a transitionary period at the moment. In grossly generaly terms the "doing" bits of projects are being done in developing comuntries and the "planning and architecting" bits are being done in EMEA and the USA.
This is a transitionary phase, but what it is a transition towards is not yet clear. If labour costs in the developing countries follow current trends and begni to equalise with those we have here, then it may be that the current trends will be seen in the future as just a phase we went through and then it was back to business as usual. If Indian, Asian etc labour rates remain considerably lower than here, then the jobs mentioned will almost certainly go overseas too as confidence and skills levels increase. In that case we will only need project managers who like travelling by plane.
I think it's way to early for anyone to say which way the cards are going to fall. Anyone who says different is probably trying to sell you something.
4. anonymous
So, at 51 I am over the hill? Please don't tell my clients. Perhaps I have the advantage of controlling my own training budget. A problem however is that UK clients are not prepared to pay rates that finance that budget. Something like 90% of my consultancy work is for firms in the USA because they are prepared to pay.
There is no skills shortage as such: the shortage is people who can afford to maintain their accreditations at UK rates.
5. anonymous
"A looming skills shortage could help the industry grow up. " But it will not going by what has happened since the last 'IT skills shortage'. The management of this country has got worse with respect to their level of professionalism and leadership qualities. Watching TV programmes like "The Apprentice" (UK or US) does nothing to alter this view of decline. Every nation state needs a section of its people to be technically trained to ensure economic stability. IT management does not seem to act to the benefit of a certain stakeholder - the nation state and its people.
6. anonymous
If there are no entry level jobs and no career path to jobs like project manager etc then we have a dead industry in the west in 20 years time. The current situation cannot continue.
7. M. Feather
In my opinion, the problem has less to do with age and more to do with the IT career path having degenerated into a cesspool because of the incredibly poor quality software dished out by corporate monoplies that have no interest whatsoever in providing value to their consumers. Add to that the requirement for 7x24 support responsibilities which have become the standard for most IT positions and you have the recipe for jobs that nobody wants. It's no wonder college kids look down their nose at IT these days, it's become the high-tech equivalent of flipping burgers.
8. Thomas Dark
There is no IT skills shortage. Company executives continue to short change their countrymen (and women) by outsourcing overseas with the CLAIM of an IT skills shortage. There are plenty of IT people in your own country folks.
A few simple REAL rules:
1.) Employees are not assets like machinery. You want to thrive? Look back at the "old fashioned" models of respect and rewarding company loyalty.
2.) Your IT staff handle some of the most technically advanced devices and software in any industry. They (the staff, software and hardware) are the backbone. The stronger the body...the more support for the mind. A group of executives who chop away at the body/support are literally undercutting themselves in the long run.
3.) Invest in your staff with training, bonuses and higher pay. They will respond with a stronger work ethic and a higher morale level. This equates to a set of individuals who will work even harder to support your network.
Think of them as a skeleton. You can hack away at the bones or allow them to grow weak. But as they are the support for the rest of the "body" every element of your business can benefit from a stronger IT source.
4.) Look around you. No...really look. Don't pretend to support your country, your state, your city and your neighborhood if you outsource. All those suffer when you do. You support your favorite sports teams and your military. This is exactly the same. You wouldn't outsource either of those...so don't do it to your workers.
9. anonymous
Industry wants the cheapest labor possible.
Beware of this, Indian programmers make about 1/10 the wages of their Western counterparts.
The only real shortage of IT workers, is a shortage of people in Western countries who will work for less than a living wage.
Industry knows this, and does hype up a false shortage hysteria.
Wages in the IT industry must remain at a reasonalble level for a while in order to keep attracting domestic workers.
Industrialists do work together to drive prices where they want them. Enron's (and the energy industry generally) price gouging of several U.S. States is a prime example of this.