By Natasha Lomas, 15 December 2008 12:28
NEWS
The financial services industry remains the most hampered by an IT skills shortage, according to the 2008 silicon.com Skills Survey.
More than half (54 per cent) of respondents who work in the FS vertical said their business has IT positions it is unable to fill - up from half of respondents in 2007. This compares to just over a third (38 per cent) of public sector organisations, and less than a third (32 per cent) of those in the retail sector.
Exclusive to silicon.com
Skills Survey 2008
Why are low paid IT jobs on the rise
Why CIO salaries are still growing
Has the IT skills crisis turned a corner?
Does the IT industry discriminate against women?
Sexes split on how to fix IT gender imbalance
The IT skills most in demand in the FS industry are (in order of most sought after first): programming languages, IT management and Linux. The most hankered-after non-IT skills are: knowledge of sector and project management, followed by leadership.
After finance, the sector most likely to be short of IT pros is telecoms - where almost half (49 per cent) of respondents reported vacant tech seats. The high-tech sector also reported a significant skills shortage, with 48 per cent of respondents saying they have IT positions they can't hire.
In the public sector, the tech skills in most demand are: IT management, programming language and web services/SOA. Non-IT skills that are hardest to find are: project management, leadership and knowledge of sector.
The retail sector is keenest for the following IT skills: database, ERP and web services/SOA; and these non-IT skills: project management, knowledge of sector and leadership.
In the telecoms vertical, the most in-demand IT skills are: applications development, programming languages and networking/messaging. Meanwhile the high-tech sector is especially hung up on: programming languages, web services/SOA and Linux.
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. bazza
When was this survey taken? Before the credit crunch? I doubt there is a shortage now....
2. Ian
Who are these companies who cannot recruit? The ones with the ads for £25K a year for MCSE/CCNA qualified engineers?
I have Prince 2 Practitioner, MCSE, CCNA, VCP 3.5 and 18 years IT industry experience in manufacturing ERP, pharma, media, recruitment etc. etc. with 5 of those in investment banking and under 40. There is tumbleweed blowing through recruitment from all streams.
Can Silicon do some meaningful analysis on these companies that can't recruit? Articles like this are worthless. How about some investigative journalism?
3. anonymous
As a Technical Manager, with 29 years experience in Management/Networking/Engineering it is more often the case NOT that there are skills shortages, BUT companys, especially in the Financial sector who do not pay the wages for Managers and Technical people. They would rather pay huge fortunes to Traders who invariably loose money than pay a Competitive Salary and renumerations for the Technical Staff. It is a shame, especially in the current financial nightmare that we find our selves in. It is also a defacto that the people who do the hiring also seem to want to hire people who have just left School, sat a couple of exams and have got a bit of paper, and no experience, whilst the majority of the IT community have their years of experience, knowledge and inside information on what actually works and does not work (and why) are paid lower wages. Some Collegues who have been working in the industry for years and have a wealth of knowledge and experience are quite often paid less than a Network Engineer who has just left school and sat a few external exams. Whilst younger collegues may have 40 plus years of milage in them, the older workforce are quite often neglected because they have maybe only 15-20 years before retirement. It is a shame, that there is a disparity in the industry which is Now beginig to show because of the financial services short sight and bias towards the more experienced workforce available to them.
4. Oz
Somebody is telling fibs or this data is severely out-of-date. I work with some of the "sort after" skills mentioned and yet agencies are telling me that there are considerably more contractors looking for work than there are jobs to fill at this very time. A search of the job boards is currently yielding less than a fifth of the quantity of postings than there was at the start of 2008. Some of the jobs which are advertised are obviously non-existent jobs - honey pots - invented by recruiters to expend their database of potential recruits or persistent attempts by some clients holding out for desperate workers to take on roles at less than half their normal rates. Nobody should take this article seriously as representing fact. It just doesn't represent the view from the other side.
5. Jason Dalziel
The biggest problem with most of these companies is that they are too blinkered to the approach of only hiring people from the same sector i.e. a java programmer who has worked with Financial Services. One of the biggest sources of new enthusiasm, dynanism and new ideas come from people who can cut across sectors.
The skills shortage is a complete myth (apart from maybe in the SE of England)!
6. Ian B
Jason Dalziel says "The biggest problem with most of these companies is that they are too blinkered to the approach of only hiring people from the same sector ".
I agree wholeheartedly. From much job searching activity over the last year, too many clients and their tame/tethered agencies are hung up on specific industry vertical knowledge as a key filtering parameter.
Come on UK plc, start looking a little wider - there is talent and experience in abundance out here. Just maybe you could look to inducting people more effectively to benefit from the wisdom!!
7. anonymous
I think this must have been done prior to the crunch hitting home. We certainly did have some vacancies that we had trouble filling... not any more. I would say if there isn't today there will be tomorrow lots of IT staff chasing fewer and fewer jobs. How safe would any new job be?