By Andy McCue, 3 January 2007 15:15
NEWS
IT graduates have the highest unemployment rate across all degree subjects at almost double the average for students leaving UK university courses, according to new figures from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (Hecsu).
The annual Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey of more than 200,000 graduates shows that while the unemployment rate of IT students fell again this year to 10.3 per cent it is still substantially higher than the average of 6.2 per cent across all subjects.
IT graduates have higher unemployment rates than students in performing arts (6.6 per cent), media studies (8.6 per cent), history (6.8 per cent) and art and design (10.2 per cent).
Two-thirds of IT graduates entered employment immediately after finishing their course and within six months after graduation this figure rose to 71.5 per cent.
The view from the grads:
silicon.com caught up with two of IBM's 2006 graduate intake and asked how they went about joining one of the industry's biggest names.
Marion Ballard: "I went to Bournemouth University to study Business Information Technology and got a first. I didn't know anything about programming before starting the course, having originally wanted to study Art History, but loved it after the first few months.
"I did a placement (industrial trainee role) at IBM in my third year as an application developer, working on VoIP services. My current role on the Foundation scheme is in application services as a database administrator. I work on back-end support for a number of projects."
Premal Patel: "I am from London but spent a number of years studying in India. I then came back to the UK and attended the University of Surrey, where I graduated with a degree in marketing. I went on to attain a Master's degree in Business Information Technology from Kingston University.
"I also worked a year for an IT reseller in London and then worked at a small IT consultancy company in New York, also for a year.
"I have recently joined IBM as a technical pre-sales specialist and am part of the Websphere team working within the Financial Sector. My responsibilities involve working with the sales team to ensure the client gets the right solution for their requirements, basically providing technical advice to both the client and sales force at IBM."
Almost half (42.4 per cent) of the 12,565 IT graduates who responded to the survey went into the IT profession. This is the third year in succession that figure has risen and Hecsu claims it provides evidence of recovery and expansion in the IT sector.
The other main employment destinations for IT graduates were as private and public sector general managers (9.6 per cent) and the business and financial profession (6.3 per cent).
The average first job salary for any graduate going into the IT profession is now £20,886, which is above the average graduate salary of £17,690 but still some way behind those entering clinical medicine, who can expect to earn £31,054 in their first job.
More worrying for the IT industry is the decline in the number of students wanting to study IT. The level of students applying for computer science degrees has halved in the last five years, leaving a shortfall in new entrants needed each year, according to Hecsu.
The Hecsu survey is based on responses from 206,965 out of the 256,460 students who graduated in the summer of 2005.
silicon.com's Will Sturgeon contributed to this article
Comments
There are 11 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
It is obvious and unsurprising to me that less students are opting for a university degrees in IT - it's because as the article states, they are least likely to get employment on completing their degree.
2. John
Not at all surprising really.
Industry, and the Government, have been systematically destroying the value of IT jobs in the UK by either sending the work overseas, or bringing in cheap labour from abroad (Europe or Asia).
So it is no surprise that companies do not want to employ inexperienced grads at £20K plus when they can get a dodgy visa immigrant for much less...
3. Jeff
Here in the US, the job picture is brighter. However, business and government continue on a relentless pursuit to offshore critical software development while circumventing laws to import cheap labor. The number of IT students has dropped dramatically and continues on a slide.
It is the usual shortsightness of business and government for the long term. Very soon, we will face the reality of control shifting to India and China over our most critical assets - software and systems that will all business and government functions
4. Anonymous
Is it me or does this article contradict itself?
"IT graduates have the highest unemployment rate across all degree subjects..."
"More worrying for the IT industry is the decline in the number of students wanting to study IT."
Why is this worrying to an industry that obviously doesn't have the capacity to employ the available graduates?
Good common sense shown by students in my mind - stay away from IT - it's dead!
5. Kevin Lewis
I went to Uni to study Computer Science when the IT boom peaked. After I finished my degree with 2.1 it took me 5 months to get a job (I was aiming at any IT related job going).
Finally got one with an online shop at £20k as a junior web developer, got made redundant after 8 months, took a pay cut and got another job in technical support 3 months later, and after 6 months got made redundant again. Yeah!
I've got a job now that I've been in for a year and a half, so far so good, it's not great pay, not a whole lot more than what I started on. Never have got the job I truely wanted, well not yet anyway, there's still time. As for any people I know, as soon as they mention thinking of studying IT, I put them off as much as possible, the cesspool is overflowing and only if you're truely excellent having been programming or rebuilding servers from the age of 2, or more likely no someone who knows someone else will you get a job.
Oh I love IT!
6. Dan
Hi,
I desagree with the project manager's comment: IT is'nt dead, its just the beginning. But the problem is, as Jeff and John said, the lack of medium-long term vision of governments and business.
In a major university here in Quebec, there were only 30 new graduates IT last year in a region that need them so much since many major IT companies are located here. And most of the graduates were not from the region or the country so they quit. Only a few people, and none from any goverment level, was worried about it.
And in a few month, we'll learn some business complain they're missing qualified employees...
And the word "outsourcing" does'nt meen much for many people here, as if this could'nt be a problem.
For sure, the IT is in movement at the beginning of the 21st century.
7. anonymous
I thought all Art & History Graduates had to learn was, "Do you want fries with that" and "Do you want to go large"?
8. Graham Wharton
So whats new...
I would never encourage my kids to enter IT, if grads cant get jobs when the economy is in good shape, god help them when a recession raises it's ugly head.
IT also seems to be riddled with ageism!
Recruitment companies (the honest ones)
have gone on the record to say that companies often rate applicants using a sort of social profile ie, what age are they? do they have distractions such as partners and children? Qualifications are often a secondary consideration.
9. anonymous
I have worked in IT as a software developer for 15 years. It is a career choice I regret. During all that time, employers have churned their workforces; graduates in plentiful supply are hired in their early 20's and are considered "too old" at much over 35 and every effort is then made by the employers to get rid of them, so the job has a career lifespan of about 15 years.
Why don't they want you over 35? Because they have to pay you more money than a 25-year-old. It's that simple. A small number go into management or marketing, a very small percentage manage to hang on in senior development roles (I would estimate your chances are about 1 in 20) and many are forced out of their jobs and have to resort to freelance contracting with it's inherent job insecurity, or change career completely and retrain as plumbers. There never was an IT skills shortage, every job I've ever gone for has always had ten other applicants chasing it. Right from the outset in my early 20's I was put under pressure to work weekends and evenings for free, so clearly the employer knows that there are lots of others in the job market if you won't do it. Now at age 36 I have been told I am "too old" at a number of job interviews ("we have a dynamic young team here, we're looking for similar people"). My advice to anybody thinking of doing computer science at university is STAY WELL CLEAR. Go for law, mediciene, accountancy, engineering - something that's a genuine profession. If I had my time again I wouldn't touch computer programming with a barge-pole. You can't depend of it and you can't base your life on it. With increasing offshoring of jobs it's only going to get worse.
10. anonymous
What makes me laugh are all the companies around which will train you for a job in IT. See loads of them advertise on TV. There aren't any jobs in IT anymore, all these companies do is flood the bottom end of the market.
11. anonymous
went self employed - cause at 29 no company was going to employ me.
Did a degree in computing - i wish I'd thrown the £8k into MCSE or something else as my degree is still rolled up in the tube it came in.
Worthless.
Working for oneself means I can work when i want, but there's always some part timer who does IT as a hobby around the corner to lose me my customers.
I started out doing law and am so gutted i gave it up at 21 to go into IT.