IT skills shortage due to bite next year

A looming IT staff shortage caused by accelerating retirement rates and fewer graduates coming into the IT profession is being forecast by technology consultants, Forrester.

Beyond the shortage of actual numbers due to kick in next year, the research also predicts more specific skills deficits as employers shift their IT requirements away from technicians and more toward business-oriented profiles.

Senior analyst, Richard Peynot, who led the research, commented: “All the evidence indicates that Europe faces a serious risk of a shortage of IT skills and Forrester believes that companies need to take action now to support long-term IT competency needs and to pay close attention to the implications of renewed competition for the best talents.”

According to Peynot, academic departments are paying too little attention to the future needs of employers and have barely begun to transform their degree programmes to incorporate more content in disciplines such as business, management, finance, architecture, and contracts.

In addition, the report asserts that many European countries cannot even generate a respectable level of enthusiasm for computer sciences among young people planning to enter higher education.

Skills shortages have already been identified as a problem in healthcare as the pace of IT-enabled modernisation picks up. Connecting for Health chief executive, Richard Granger, told the Healthcare Computing conference in March 2005 that the industry had lost between 100,000 and 250,000 jobs since the end of Y2K work and the dot.com shake-out in 2000.

This meant that succession planning in which junior staff moved up the career ladder had fallen apart. The shortage had led to the NHS having to use programmers in the US and India, he said. While the staff were of high quality, there were still difficulties caused by different time zones and cultures.

Kate Morley, director of permanent recruitment for Elan IT, a recruitment and solutions consultancy heavily involved in recruiting for the UK health sector, commented: “There are skills shortages and they are pretty much in line with what the Forrester report is saying.”

She said there were particular shortages of people who had both clinical and technical skills. Asked what employers could do to mitigate the shortages, she advised them to devise a strategy, give themselves time and project future needs now.

“I think a lot of it comes down to whether or not they have the time for a learning curve. A lot of people are looking for experience. Organisations would be in a better position if they could look forward nine to 12 months and be prepared to train people rather than expect them to have all the skills straight away,” she said.

Questioning which aptitudes and competencies were essential on appointment and which could be acquired by good training was vital, she said.