Anomalies in the jobs market have been revealed in research for
Computer Weekly, writes Bill Goodwin. The findings highlight the
need to look at what training is offered to young people and career
IT workers
Serious questions are being asked about the training provision for
staff employed by small firms, as evidence begins to emerge that,
in the midst of the worst economic slowdown in IT for a decade,
many are struggling to fill IT vacancies.
Research compiled for Computer Weekly by E-Skills UK, the national
public-private sector partnership for IT and communications
training, shows the IT jobs market running at two speeds, with
large firms laying off contractors and freezing recruitment while
small firms are unable to find appropriate IT staff.
By re-analysing data from a survey of 800 firms in February,
E-Skills UK has found that small companies were reporting
significant shortages of people with systems support and
development skills during the trough of the IT jobs market slump.
More smaller firms were planning to increase their IT staff than
larger companies, and fewer expected to cut staff.
Nearly 20% of firms employing 50 people or less said they could not
find enough staff with systems administration and support skills,
whereas only 6% of firms employing 500 or more staff had the same
problem. Similarly, while 10% of small firms reported shortages of
IT development staff, only 5% of larger firms did. The discrepancy
explains the conflicting picture given by recent IT jobs market
reports which, until now, have appeared to be contradictory.
At first sight, the optimistic view of taken by the E-Skills UK
research is difficult to reconcile with the gloomy analysis of the
Computer Weekly/SSP Quarterly Survey of Appointments Data and
Trends, but take into account the difficulties of small firms and
the discrepancies disappear.
For IT professionals struggling to find work, the revelation that
smaller firms are crying out for staff will come as welcome news,
but it can be difficult to reach the people they need. They can
rarely afford to advertise in the national press, and they tend to
prefer advertising in the local media to listing vacancies on the
Internet.
Small firms may not be able to match the salaries offered by their
larger competitors, but they do offer IT workers other benefits,
said Dave Bishop, deputy head of press and Parliament at the
Federation of Small Businesses. "Clearly, highly skilled IT
specialists demand a large salary and packages of benefits and
small firms sometimes find it difficult to compete. But we do find
where IT people look beneath the surface, they see the greater
challenges and responsibilities that small businesses offer, and
small businesses can be more appealing," he says.
In practice, the IT professionals small firms are looking for are
likely to have quite different skills to those sought by larger
companies. Staff in large firms are often specialists but smaller
companies need people who can turn their hand to anything.
Philip Virgo, strategic advisor at the Institute for the Management
of Information Systems (Imis), said small firms need good
all-rounders, who can set up a network, install software and
programme spreadsheets and databases. And, with most small firms
having to multi-task, they need people with good business skills
who can take part in other activities.
Steve Gilroy, vice-president of Comptia, the IT and communication
companies' association, agreed. "A small business does not need a
network administrator and a helpdesk person, they need a
Jack-of-all-trades," he said.
Yet colleges, universities and private sector training
organisations are failing to turn out professionals with all-round
skills. The Federation of Small Businesses said the provision of
suitable courses in further education colleges is "patchy".
Experts believe the solution may be the creation of bite-sized
training courses that will enable IT staff in small firms to learn
the skills they need, when they need them, without having to enrol
on vocational courses. Few small firms can afford to release staff
for any length of time, and few have the resources to pay for
training.
All of this should precipitate a re-evaluation of training and
spending priorities and further research to develop a clearer
picture of small businesses' needs.
E-Skills UK is expected to look more closely at discrepancies
between the skills requirements of companies of different sizes in
the future and the two-speed economy will be the subject of a study
by Imis which will be released over the next few weeks.
E-Skills UK's findings are supported by new research from Comptia
and analyst firm IDC which found that the UK has a shortfall of
200,000 skilled IT professionals. It forecast this number will grow
to 300,000 by 2005. Many of these vacancies will occur among
smaller firms.
Further confirmation comes from the Computer Weekly/SSP Survey,
which showed that demand for PC support staff, one of the IT skills
favoured by small businesses, is still holding despite a dramatic
slowdown in demand for most other IT skills.
A deeper analysis is expected to bring to light strong regional
variations in the level of IT skills shortages in small firms, with
London and the South East faring better than the regions.
Jobs totals hit 10-year low
The UK is in the midst of
its biggest downturn in IT the jobs market for 10 years. IT
suppliers have reduced their recruitment efforts steadily for the
past three years. Large employers have also cut back staff, though
less dramatically, with only the public sector and small businesses
stepping up their hiring efforts.
Research by the Institute for the Management of Information Systems
suggests that the IT industry is experiencing a shakeout that will
follow the pattern of that experienced by the motor industry after
its first 50 years. Although the sales volumes of cars increased
steadily throughout the depression of the 1920s and 1930s, many
famous names vanished, and it was 20 years before the share price
of the surviving car manufacturers recovered. Similarly, many
famous IT suppliers may not survive the downturn. The current wave
of viruses and denial of service attacks is leading to a
consolidation of Internet service providers, and there may need to
be major changes to the infrastructure before growth in the use of
the Internet reaches its next phase.
The high-tech recession will mean that many suppliers will have to
take another look at what their customers actually want. There is a
growing realisation that users want simplicity, reliability, and
fast response times rather than a profusion of features.
The timing and scale of the recovery will depend on the ready
availability of broadband for businesses and consumers. ADSL is not
fast enough to eliminate the bottlenecks experienced by IT user
organisations looking to integrate their supply chains.
Source: Imis research Philip Virgo