NEWS
The IT skills crisis is deepening, according to exclusive silicon.com research.
The ninth annual Skills Survey reveals employers are finding it increasingly difficult to fill IT positions in their organisations.
Half (48 per cent) of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed there is a skills crisis. And 45 per cent said there are IT jobs in their business they are unable to fill.
This compares to 37 per cent suffering staffing issues last year - and 34 per cent in 2005. Just 14 per cent had problems recruiting back in 2003.
Despite recruitment difficulties caused by the skills shortage, fewer survey respondents than last year feel driven to consider software as a service (SaaS) as a means of plugging the gap - just 23 per cent said they have considered using SaaS, down two percentage points on last year.
For the fifth year running, programming languages such as Java, C variants, HTML and XML are in shortest supply in the workplace, followed by web services, SOA skills such as J2EE and .NET, and then IT management skills (around systems, storage and networks) and database expertise.
Project management is also unchanged as the non-IT skill in shortest supply in the workplace, with leadership skills also proving difficult to locate, as in previous years.
When it comes to the perennial question of whether business or technical skills are most important to succeeding in the IT industry, the majority of respondents to the 2007 Skills Survey hedged their bets. More than half (62 per cent) said it is important to have both business and technical skills.
Asked directly if business skills are key, 67 per cent agreed or strongly agreed that they are - although this figure is down on 2006's result, when 83 per cent said business skills were key.
Just 18 per cent of respondents to this year's Skills Survey think technical skills are the most important to IT success.
The results are based on responses from 721 individuals, most of whom reside in the UK.
We will be bringing you more results from the silicon.com 2007 Skills Survey over the coming days and weeks.
Comments
There are 14 comments. Join the discussion
1. Karen Challinor
Wanted Technical Experts
...anyone with more skills than needed due to experience (age ... next!), anyone fresh out of university (poor interpersonal skills ... next!), anyone who is not an exact fit (training! you want what ? ... next!), anyone who is a UK resident (you need how much a week to live in the UK ? ... next!) need not apply
2. anonymous
This is so amusing. When are companies going to wake up and see the correlation between a shortage of skilled talent and their own discrimination against hiring anyone over 45? There are many of us out here who have a wealth of experience and are looking for work but can't even get an interview due to their age.
And when are we Baby Boomers going to unite and change things? We have the power to do so as we have done with many other things. If we wait for the politicans we won't see any change on this issue in our lifetime.
3. anonymous
Businesses think technical skills are not important until the day they find they don't have the skills on tap when something goes seriously wrong eg a disater recovery; software not up to date and a database can't be recovered; etc etc
4. anonymous
Pathetic; your a young person starting out in life - a career in IT when its being outsourced to other countries on grounds of cost and management short-termism! I would hesitate to recommend a career in IT its too cyclical and management still cannot make up its mind regarding cost V a skilled and knowledgable local workforce. Time to straighten out the mixed messages of the present and support GB PLC.
5. Anthony Wilde
I really do get wound up that technical skills are somehow made out to be the poor cousin of other skills.
To be effective technically the most crucial element is communication, from requirement to design to implementation.
I fail to understand why this core element of technical competance is not understood in wider circles.
Working in teams and with users to deliver software or other technology solutions this has to be the first skill.
Technical skills are based around design both at a numerical and literary expression both as formulas, proofs, design and testing strategies.
The tricky art of taking a technical solution to either an internal or external market - marketing and sales, production, distribution, budget control, resourcing skills, people, premises, hardware and looking after team building are all built on technical excellence.
Somewhere these latter skills seem to have gained the emphasise of late and the whole basis of scientific and engineering principles which they are built on have been diluted to the point where these are now an active barrier to new entrants into the technology society.
6. anonymous
One major problem is that there are a lot of highly experienced and competent folks out there - but they are older than 45 and so must be senile - or so it seems. This results from agencies and HR departments being staffed by 20 somethings to whom anyone over 40 is old and beyone 50 is possibly speaking from a coffin or a home for the elderly whilst imbibing a horlicks. They must wake up and realise that older people have a load of experience that can solve many of the problems of skill shortages. We need to actively stamp out ageism in both of these areas (and I do promise you it is rife) and we can resolve this situation together.
7. Chris Stevens
A skills shortage? The consequence of combined ageism and outsourcing. The younger generation have it clearly in their mind that IT is a dead end and their jobs will be outsourced. At the other end of the scale once past 40 and the IT professional is unable to think or be retrained.
Industry should actually invest in people and show that IT personnel are respected.
A thorough shake up of the recruitment agency sector would also help connect people with the jobs. Currently recruitment agencies are an expensive waste of space. They make little effort to find the right candidates.
8. Dom
Skills crisis or are employers looking too hard for the perfect candidate?
From my own experience of looking for a different job being bi-lingual, fluent in Linux and Windows server admin, knowing oracle, MS-SQL, sybase, windows, Perl and bash scripting, support customers and more.
With such a broad range of skills I still find it difficult to find a job.
Why, simply because is seem that employers insiste on finding the 1 in million candidate that will check all their box and aren't prepared to compromised.
It's classic, just like with dating when you become too specific with who you are looking for you end up screen yourself out
9. Julia
The only thing I can say about outsourcing and jobs loss in the UK or somewhere else is that some outsourcing providers also have big problems with hiring skilled staff. Just keep it in mind.
Hope this situation wont lead to more serious crisis in developed and developing IT countries.
10. anonymous
Serves 'em right. Once I was over 45 the work just dried up and I became effectively unemployable.
They have no-one to blame but themselves.
11. Mark Hosey
There is no skills shortage in technical personnel. There is just a refusal to use the perfectly adaquate resources presently available in the technical employment market and a reluctance to provide either formal or on the job training for new starts.
It is symptomatic of todays business culture that requires companies to maximise their profits with the least amount of investment.
12. anonymous
Seems ageism is a theme in these posts. I have on file an email from an internet job seeker site that comforms my view that ageism is rife. We can only do something about it if we join forces. So do email me at an email I have set up specifically to catch such email. Get anyone else you know to email me as well!
The email address is so obscure that anyone just trying on the offchance at getting to me will have problems even typing it correctly! It is aberystwyth.monamour@ntlworld.com
13. Anil
Hi ,
U are right. They will also face the music when their critical systems need to be enhanced and they need somebody who can do that without distrubing the old features. The problem is that many IT department of businesses have people who dont really value the technical skills and feel that they can easily be aqquired which we in the tech industry know is not easy or as simple as it is.They will realise the importance at crunch time.
14. anonymous
What's really ridiculous about this is that is has nothing whatsoever to do with a US labor shortage, age, skills, personality, or education. It has only to do with the number of jobs reported by employers that they must say this in order to get an H1-B to bring somebody in from outside the country or outsource the work to fill, so that they don't have to pay legitimate American citizens what it costs to live here. However, I applaud Google for having the insight, initiative, innovation and courage to start building a new facility in Michigan, that will employ 15,000 people who will work for less than Eastern Asians now and where property, just outside Ann Arbor and next to the University of Michigan can be bought for string of beads. No wonder Google is kicking everybody else's behinds!