By Dan Ilett, 31 July 2006 16:15
NEWS
The UK faces an IT skills crisis and will find it tougher to compete on a global level unless the government and businesses take action, British Airways' CIO has warned.
But while Paul Coby said a shortage in skilled IT professionals could lead the UK into economic trouble, businesses have enough opportunities to turn the situation around.
He told silicon.com: "IT skills are absolutely essential to the economic future of the UK. We're all finding it's tough to find top-grade staff.
"We will have a crisis if we don't move this forward but we have a lot of building blocks. The IT industry is globalising and we are seeing a decline in the number of IT graduates."
Coby sits on the CIOs' board of training organisation e-skills UK.
Research from e-skills has found only 40 per cent of computer users have received any IT training while 90 per cent of new jobs now require IT skills. Sixty-seven per cent of employers said that the staff level of IT skills 'defines' the impact on productivity.
Two million people in the UK alone are thought to have IT skills gaps for their jobs.
Coby said SMEs are one area where skills need to be improved.
He said: "The SMEs are really important and are a key element of the economy and will become the powerhouse of the future. It is vital that the UK has a rich skills environment. You need to have people who are good at tech and people good at business.
"It sounds obvious but I think it's important. You should be able to make these things work."
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Hmm, a well known phrase involving black, pot, and kettle comes to mind !
While I agree with what Mr Coby says, he works for a large airline which seems oblivious to what it (along with the rest of the airline industry) is doing to the 'grass roots' of flying - the very sector from which a good propertion of it's pilots come from.
The airlines have over the last few years been on a campaign to shift costs from themselves to private and small business flyers - costs which I might add often arise from the fact that the airlines have huge chunks of airspace from which the small guys are excluded.
I don't disagree with having controlled airspace as it makes for significant safety benefits. What I have a problem with is that the small flyer is excluded from big chunks of airspace for the benefit of the airlines - and then the airlines expect us to pay more than our share for services (such as radar information) to help mitigate the problems (some of them serious safety problems themselves) caused by the existence of this controlled airspace.
The result of this and other changes (which were also for the airlines benefit) is a huge increase in costs with a corresponding reduction in the number of private and small business pilots. So where do BA expect to get their pilots from ? Simple, they'll do what the IT industry has been doing for the last few years - claim a shortage and expect the government to allow them to import lots of cheap labour from elsewhere !
It's a practice we've seen done with IT and healthcare - but expecially with healthcare, I personally think it's nothing more than institutional theft to go poaching medical staff from poorer countries. These countries have invested significant value in training these staff - only to have them poached to wealthier countries who arguably have less need of them.
2. Karen Challinor
Stop trying to recruit the mythical "graduate with 10 years experience", stop looking for an exact skill set match and discarding people with more skills than you need, start recruiting older people with more experience and train the staff you have and know in preference to recruiting new staff
What skills crisis ?
3. Stuart Vine
Why should the state bear the cost of training staff in business-orientated IT skills?
I might be a touch biased but that type of training is the responsibility of the employer.
4. anonymous
I agree completely with this comment. I was made redundant at the end of 2004 and have subsequently achieved an MBA (with merit) after one year of full-time study. One year later I am still looking for a job in the IT sector and have had two interviews in the year after my studying.
Several agencies have commented that I have been out of work for too long, one agency has stated that as I live abroad I would not be able to obtain security clearance for Government jobs (I live in Germany, probably the most 'controlled' country in Europe... ID cards, registered addresses, very tightly regulated working regulations, etc) as the vetting service would not be able to trace my whereabouts since I left the UK.
I think that the problem with the skills crisis lies with the Recruitment agency business. The agents must achieve and the agencies must also achieve therefore it follows that where there is not a perfect match between the CV and the job specification then the prospective job seeker will not pass the first hurdle. Ergo there is a 'skills crisis'.
5. anonymous
I agree completely with this comment. I was made redundant at the end of 2004 and have subsequently achieved an MBA (with merit) after one year of full-time study. One year later I am still looking for a job in the IT sector and have had two interviews in the year after my studying.
Several agencies have commented that I have been out of work for too long, one agency has stated that as I live abroad I would not be able to obtain security clearance for Government jobs (I live in Germany, probably the most 'controlled' country in Europe... ID cards, registered addresses, very tightly regulated working regulations, etc) as the vetting service would not be able to trace my whereabouts since I left the UK.
I think that the problem with the skills crisis lies with the Recruitment agency business. The agents must achieve and the agencies must also achieve therefore it follows that where there is not a perfect match between the CV and the job specification then the prospective job seeker will not pass the first hurdle. Ergo there is a 'skills crisis'.