By David Meyer, 28 February 2007 11:50
NEWS
Six out of 10 employers do not care whether graduate applicants for ICT jobs have ICT-related degrees, a survey has revealed.
The statistics, released by government-led skills agency e-skills UK, also show only two out of every five graduates working in ICT have an ICT-related degree.
e-skills UK chief executive Karen Price said: "Graduates from non-ICT disciplines have often developed skills in areas not yet widely included in traditional computing courses, such as business, project, communication and other interpersonal skills."
Price said the figures demonstrate that ICT-related degrees should "evolve to reflect the broader range of capabilities required to be successful in modern careers in IT and telecoms". She also claimed the statistics highlight the need for qualifications such as those earned through IT management for business (ITMB) degrees - which will be running at 12 universities by the end of the year. ITMB degrees have a greater focus on business, rather than pure technology skills.
Other findings arising from the survey of more than 1,000 ICT recruiters include: "55 per cent of employers consider the level of achievement in the degree to be 'important' or 'very important'", and "four per cent of employers consider the place of study to be important or very important".
Another recent e-skills UK study found 17 per cent of UK employers worry their staff lack sufficient IT skills.
David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
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1. Mark Kobayashi-Hillary
It's no surprise. In most jobs, the ability to negotiate and work with others is the greatest skill one can master. The crucial factor for most employers is, can they get team-players and give them the IT skills they need, and is that easier or harder than getting those with IT skills, but potentially less experience of working with others. Saying everyone who studies IT is a geek is too much of a stereotype, but there *is* a difference in studying a very logical subject such as IT and something such as English or Media... We need to face up to this and look again at what is taught within IT degrees.
2. Ani Srikantiah
HI,
I agree but i feel in many countries like India with strong IT industries it does not really matter what short of education you have since the whole Education set up is crap and there is total mismatch between what they are taught and what is expected from . I am in the IT industry for 12 years and in degree course i had not even seen a computer .
3. Iain Smith
This story oversimplifies the issues: employers' insistence on IT- or Computer Science-related degrees has never very high: the reported numbers of employers requiring such degrees (see this story) is in fact very high by historic levels. My research shows that the prevailing 'median' requirement is for a technical degree of some kind - though this could be Chemical Engineering or even (in some cases) just Maths. Is this requirement justified? Probably not! Few engineering graduates have much contact with computers beyond Excel, and some maths courses may well stop at telling students how to typeset equations into computer systems.