Concern over the downturn in IT job opportunities in Europe is
unlikely to last long, according to research by BCS fellow Matthew
Dixon for the Council of European Professional Informatics
Societies (Cepis), of which the BCS is a leading member, writes
John Kavanagh.
"The research indicates that, taking into account annual growth of
10% in employment of key technical IT staff following the current
downturn, there could be additional demand for more than 1.5
million IT professionals over the years to 2005," Dixon says. "This
is a considerable volume, and it is very unlikely to be filled from
the combined output of all current IT degree courses across
Europe."
Cepis urges employers and governments to take note of the findings.
"While the problem is not acute at present, there is no room for
complacency by the industry and governments. These findings will
prove of particular value to the work of the IT skills monitoring
group established by the European Commission last September, which
will present its work at a high-level European e-skills summit in
Copenhagen in October," it says.
"If the European Union is to establish dominance in this
strategically important area, this scale of future demand
underlines the importance of the need for pan-European arrangements
to enable those without IT degrees to progress effectively to
competence in this work.
"The European certificate for informatics professionals, being
developed by Cepis with European Commission support, will
increasingly play a major role in this."
The research report, IT Practitioner Skills in Europe, claims to be
the first study to use comparable national statistics relating to
employment in IT jobs in EU countries, and shows some significant
national variations.
In particular, there is more training in the UK and Sweden than in
Germany, and the UK has a higher proportion of self-employed
consultants and contractors.
The UK lags behind Ireland and Sweden in the proportion of women in
IT - less than 20% of UK IT staff, are women and this figure is
falling.
The full 154-page report can be downloaded from
www.cepis.org/