Leading employers and government departments gave their
backing in March to an action plan designed to ensure that
businesses have access to the IT skills they need over the next 10
years.
The E-Skills Sector Skills Agreement aims to solve the
underlying training and recruitment problems that have led to
shortages of skilled IT professionals.
The agreement won backing from the government, universities,
employers including Ford, British Airways, Vodafone and John Lewis,
and suppliers such as EDS and IBM.
The plan recognises that as basic IT functions are moved
offshore, the UK's IT professionals will increasingly need business
and management skills.
The first fruits of the agreement began to appear during the
year, as employers and colleges began to work more closely
together, and universities began to offer redesigned IT degrees,
more closely matched to the needs of employers.
The new-style degrees combine business, IT and communications
skills in equal measure, and will increasingly incorporate supplier
certificates in the syllabus.
A network of IT academies will provide accelerated training in
business and communication skills for practising IT staff .
Despite initiatives such as this, Forrester Research warned
that Europe could face a "war for talent" in the new year as
spending on IT starts to increase. Project managers, IT
professionals with legacy skills, and staff with the skills to
manage and integrate open source code will be in short supply, the
analyst firm predicted.
Potential skills shortages could be exacerbated by a heavy
demand for IT professionals to run large public sector IT projects,
particularly in the health service.
Computer Weekly reported towards the end of the year that the
pay gap between the public and private sectors had closed for the
first time, making the public sector a more attractive proposition
for IT professionals.