By Natasha Lomas, 25 March 2008 13:18
NEWS
The UK's high tech sector will need tens of thousands extra skilled migrant workers in the next five years, but attracting skilled IT pros from abroad to plug those gaps may become more difficult.
A report by consultancy the Centre for Economics and Business Research for recruitment company Harvey Nash into the impact of skilled migrant workers has predicted the IT, telecoms and transport sector will need an extra 19,000 skilled migrants between 2007 and 2012, as demand for ecommerce and software specialists increases.
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The total number of jobs held by and reliant upon jobs done by highly skilled migrants is forecast to rise to 1.5 million by 2012 - or 4.9 per cent of the UK population. While the total population of highly skilled migrants is predicted to be 812,000 in 2012, or 1.3 per cent of the UK population.
The report said the IT, telecoms and transport sector is responsible for employing the largest number of skilled migrant workers in the UK after education, health and government services - a grouping which includes the thousands of migrant healthcare professionals employed in the NHS.
By 2012, the IT, telecoms and transport sector is set to have a highly skilled working migrant population of 160,000, rising from 141,000 in 2007. This compares to the most populous sector - education, health and government services - which is set to rise from 223,000 skilled migrant workers in 2007, to 253,000.
According to the report, the population of highly skilled international software professionals jumped by 26,000 in the UK between 2000 and 2007 as "the almost universal rollout of computing and internet facilities increased the demand for personnel with information technology skills". This millennium skills gap was plugged predominantly by IT pros from India, it said.
But the report suggests it may become increasingly difficult for the UK to source these migrant IT workers it needs.
It said: "The growth of ecommerce will require an ever-increasing number of IT professionals. These employees will primarily be sourced from India. However, as India has a rapidly growing economy and with the onset of outsourcing these professionals may become harder to attract."
The total financial value to the UK of skilled migrant workers is forecast to be worth £46bn by 2012, with IT, telecoms and transport set to comprise £10.4bn of that - second only to education, health and government services (£10.8bn).
Azim Premji, chairman of Bangalore-based IT company Wipro, recently warned the Western world is "seriously underestimating" the scale of the tech skills shortage it faces.
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Am I totally naive in believing we can employ our own native population to fill some of these jobs?
I don't think we can consider the immigrant population in isolation here. Surely if there is enough demand for these skills, then the salaries offered will reflect that and the local population will therefore be attracted. Am I missing something?
2. Simon
Well that's a surprise. They spend years running down the industry, making it as unattractive as possible, not providing training, labelling people as past it when only half way through their working life. Then eventually they notice we've got a problem.
Do I expect any change? Do I expect employers to start offering training to their staff? Do I expect the job offers to come rolling in now I'm in my mid-40s? About as much as I expect the sun to decide on a few days off.
3. GALLEY SLAVE#41
If the UK needs skilled people, it must train its own people - not steal them from other nations.
4. James Button
Government actions preclude 'training' the required staff in the UK, either in schools, or industry.
Stated policy may be that they are needed, and the government will help organisations train staff, but their actions make it unlikely that UK institutions will put the long term effort into training staff, or retaining skilled and experienced staff, and the pay structure is still that non-technical 'managers' get paid more than the staff thhey are to manage.
So, do you advise students in school/college to become a 'manager', who can, with a reasonable skills set, expect 40 years employment.
Or advise them to become an IT technician, spending - say 4 years obtaining technical skills looking towards 20 years employment, (Too old to be employed in IT at 40) renewing/replacing their core skills (Software and project management philosophy) at least every 3 years, while getting less pay than a 'manager'
5. Andrew Robb
Why do we need migrant IT workers? Is it because agencies don't think of recruiting anyone over 50?
6. Karen Challinor
the UK already has skilled people it just doesn't want to use them because they are regarded as being too old
being older means you have had the chance to acquire some experience and diversify your skillset, so there's more chance of finding an older person with any particular set of required skills than a younger person
older people are less likely to inflate their CV's as they generally don't need to
older people with skills will have those skills in depth and can hit the ground running with little or no learning curve
but carry on looking anywhere and everywhere for young people with twenty years experience, I'm tellng you now you won't find them
and as for enticing young people into the industry to take up the slack, young people aren't stupid, they've seen how the industy treats those who went before them, they know that after twenty years they will be unemployable
7. Richard Sarson
I wonder whether s.com's CIO panel train their staff regularly.
My own view is that everyone in the industry needs at least three weeks a year:
one techie training
one professional training in your sector
one interpersonal skills, to drag IT people back into the human race.
Professional bodies like the BCS should insist on this, and perhaps the government should legislate.
More important, everybody should badger their employers, and not just sit back, moan and expect others to do the fighting.