By Sylvia Carr, 5 July 2006 15:45
NEWS
The UK software industry is struggling to deal with the rise of offshoring, a 'geeky' image and the country's IT skills gap - but there's still hope.
To thrive, the industry must support innovation; improve IT's image and foster better co-operation between academia, business and government, according to a new report sponsored by the British Computer Society (BCS), Lancaster University and Microsoft.
Microsoft senior director Matthew Bishop said today at the launch of the report, Developing the Future: "The UK software industry is under threat because of its inability to keep pace with the rest of the world."
The UK must churn out 150,000 new IT workers annually to keep up with industry growth yet each year only 20,000 students graduate in IT-related fields, according to the report. Even with immigration, the jobs cannot be filled and many companies look to outsource jobs to locations such as China and India with higher numbers of qualified grads.
To combat offshoring, according to the report, the UK must focus on its strengths and develop innovative and complex projects that cannot be offshored.
Professor Edward Truch of the Lancaster University Management School said: "We need to begin to see the UK as a creative hub in the global village."
Then, though we will see the outflow of certain jobs, the country will also see an inflow of jobs related to this innovation, he explained.
The UK software industry has often been knocked for its lack of innovation - and its inability to produce a British Google.
This failing is not just a cultural issue, it's an issue of funding, according to Truch. The report called for young businesses to develop the business skills they need to win over venture capitalists, something done much better by US start-ups.
To boost the number of computer science graduates, IT needs an image overhaul - both as a profession and as an industry.
Elizabeth Sparrow, chairman of the BCS working party on offshoring, said: "The image of IT is still bad - it's the geek and the nerd." Yet, she added, this is not accurate as the bulk of IT jobs need a broader set of skills.
The silicon.com 2006 Skills Survey revealed that business skills are key to success in today's IT departments.
Sparrow also stressed the need to publicise IT project successes, as currently the industry has a bad reputation from over-emphasis on project failures.
To improve the quality of graduates, businesses must communicate to universities which skills they really need in workers, she said.
Efforts are being made to unite academia and business, such as a new degree at Lancaster University in information technology management and business, but it's easier said than done.
Lancaster University's Truch said: "It's difficult to get IT geeks and nerds to work with the business management people."
Businesses must also learn to appreciate the importance of the IT skills gap, which will affect business' ability to perform in five to 10 years, according to Truch.
He said: "IT in underrepresented on most [corporate] boards. This is a major danger," adding it is because IT is so central to future business success.
In silicon.com's 2006 Skills Survey, many IT managers said they did not feel their ideas were respected by the board.
Another barrier to close academic-business partnerships, explained Ovum senior analyst Bola Rotibi, is that businesses don't realise the value of software development in their organisation - and thus don't see the need to build up skills in this area.
She said: "Businesses view software development at an arm's length. We need a better measure of the value and ROI [return on investment] for software development."
Comments
There are 11 comments. Join the discussion
1. John Jaffa
Bullshit!
If the IT industr and software development in particular is demanding 130,000 more IT graduates per year then where are the job offers?
The so-called skill shortage is being manufactured by two elements:
1, The continued insistance of companies demanding only young graduates whilst persistantly refusing to suppport continued training of current staff.
2, A ploy to pursuade the government to open the doors to thousands of young IT immigrants, or to justify off-shoring.
The real problem lies at the heart of directors and senior managers. Whilst they are dependant on IT they are intimidated by it through lack of understanding. Thus they demand knee-jerk solutions to the problems they perceive.
We need IT seniors with business and management skills at director and senior manager level. We need to cease age prejudism. We need a framework to encourage companies to invest in continual training for staff. Finally, companies need to make an effort to understand the motivational requirements of it's software development staff.
2. ian paterson
The skills gap works in two directions. Senior management at board level more often than not have very few IT skills. Understanding of technology has to meet in the middle. As IT Managers say, they feel their opinions are not respected. This is often due to a mistrust of the 'smoke and mirrors' assocaited with IT systems and not wanting to admit their complete reliance upon 'geeks and nerds'.
The whole image is promoted also by a lack of understanding. The stereotype is over used and displays another level of misunderstanding.
Maybe if we had Arnold Schwarzenegger in a new movie gloriously defeating the bad guys with his PDA and the Windows 2003 Support Pack the image may improve. Somehow I can't see that happening.
Oh well. I will just have to put my tank top back on, gaze longingly at the picture of Lara Croft on my pin board and wait four minutes for the light to ooze through my ridiculously thick glasses while I play my VR game online all night.
3. Mrs Diane Wicks
If the UK IT industry needs 150,000 new recruits a year but only 20,000 young people are graduating in IT related Degrees, then the IT industry needs to stop being ageist and throwing people on the scrapheap when they reach 35. If I were a young student I would be put of IT if I thought my skills would only give me about 10 years of employment. Give people a job for life in IT if they want it, and people would be happy to follow this line of career. Me? I am in admin and accounts, try as they might no employer can do without at least one of me! :o)
4. Karen Challinor
too little too late
over the years we've run down our heavy industries because politicians didn't like to be reliant on them and therefore give them power, now we've systematically done the same to the rest of our industries including the white collar ones so the politicians have nothing left to fear.
we now have no industry to call our own, no development, no research and no spark of excitement that leads to people thinking "hey thats an idea lets try this"
and the price ? ... well that will depend if you want fries with your order sir
5. Simon
Nothing will change while businesses remain so short sighted.
IT has become one of those sectors that people tell their kids to avoid - and for good reason.
It appears that business people accept that it's normal to employ junior accountants and put them through part time courses to get their accountancy qualifications as they progress up the ladder - a variation on the old apprentice schemes. When it comes to IT though, it seems they want someone to come with exactly the skills needed, and to magically keep those skills up to date with no help from the business - and of course they expect IT people to work for peanuts.
OK, I know this isn't universal, but I see enough of it to know that (outside of the larger outfits) this is most certainly the case. Certainly, at my last job, there were several accountants in various stages of their qualifications - all getting assistance from the company. When I went along with the opportunity to buy some quality training at a big discount (and the offer to take holidays to cover the time, and pay my own travelling etc costs) I got turned down because I couldn't state that I ABSOLUTELY needed the qualifications to carry on with my job. I know that not one of the accountancy people NEEDED the qualifications for what they were doing - and a fair proportion took then qualification as a ticket out of the place.
It is attitudes like this, up and down the country, where medium sized businesses are now run by the bean counters, that cause much of the alleged skills shortage. They just can't see that people in all fields need to keep up to date. OK, some will take the training and leave, but if all employers put something into the pot, then they'd also gain be being able to emply people trained by someone else.
Can they see this fundamental problem, hell no, they can't put a value on it so it doesn't appear in the bean counting.
And THAT is (to a large extent) why there is supposedly a skills shortage in IT. Not though a lack of people wanting the jobs, not through a lack of available training, but through a lack of investment by the very people who should realise what 'investment' means.
I know plenty of people looking for IT work. Some can't get it because employers seem to want experience (ie they don't want to invest in fresh talent). Some can't get get it because of the rampant agism (we middle aged people are capable of learning, given a little support - ie investment). Some of us struggle because quite frankly we don't want to go to that hell hole of the South East - it appears quite a few business leaders ... well the least said about the vanity of wanting to stay in the SE when there's so much to be had elsewhere.
So, business leaders, GOYA and realise that the reason for the alleged skills shortage is because YOU have lost all sense of how to invest in people. There's plenty of people there IF you are prepared to use your imagination.
If not then we'll carry on leaving the industry and go drive lorries, busses, trains, whatever. And when there really are no IT people left, then you'll only have yourselves to blame - not that you'll have the imagination to realise it. So are you going to keep counting the beans, or go out there and build a business ?
6. anonymous
Surprise surprise, students don't want to spend years training for a job that will probably end up being outsourced overseas...doh - didn't see that coming did you Mr/s Executive when you were exporting all the high-tech jobs?
A knock-on effect is that since nobody in the UK will want to go into programming if they have any sense, where will all the future analysts & architects come from?
7. Matt
It saddens me that Businesses and Universities still rely so heavily on degrees and pieces of paper.
I have 12 years experience in I.T., 9 in development, the rest in support.
I was refused a part-time place at University because I don't have an HNC even though I was prepared to put in the work to gain a degree.
If businesses took real experience into consideration and gave people a chance to cross train, maybe there'd be less worry in the industry about falling numbers.
I know my team and I would jump at a decent paid job instead of settling for local government 'safety'......
8. Eric the Disillusioned
What a joke - take on more complex projects that cannot be offshored.
1) We see IT disasters everywhere with our current fairly simple batch of offerings
2) Every UK company is run by quarterly returns on the spreadsheet and risk reduction decisions and pricing.
If we do not take risks we will never learn how to take on difficult projects. We prove this time and time again.
None of the senior execs want to change this because they are more focussed on shareprice than business and shareprice is being positively enhanced by offshoring (at the moment).
The current industry is not 'threatened' by offshoring and geeks since it is already being decimated by lack of management risk/reward balance.
9. anonymous
Spot on! Politicians have systematically destroyed British Industry and Enterprise. What a sad sorry nation we have become.
10. Ruth
John Jaffa says it all! Companies don't want to pay for training for their current staff & when those staff, by now thoroughly demotivated, leave - often to move completely out of IT - they will only accept new staff with the exact skillsets they require, 20 years experience, preferably male - and aged under 35! Then they complain they can't find suitable staff......
When UK companies change their attitudes on training, sexism & ageism the skill shortage will disappear.
11. Dharmesh Mistry
The software industry is going through the same cycle as manufacturing did from the start of the industrial revolution.
The jobs and factories began in the UK, then jobs and factories moved to cheaper locations. When factories became smarter the decision where to locate factories was based less on costs.
Improving productivity of developers requires new tools and approaches. One that improves output from programmers and ideally creates more programmers from people without coding skills.
Hence a return of 4GL's that adopt a Model Driven Architecture is the way forward. We have proven productivity gains of 3:1 (3 traditional coders to one using a smart tool). We have also proven non-developers creating applications.
The real benefit is with productivity you can align people with the business onshore, something that is proving to be an issue with offshore outsource contracts even with local staff feeding offshore developers.
edge IPK have led the "Zero-code" approach, and now this message being adopted by Microsoft and other large software vendors. Real steps are being made towards "End user development".