Skills fears as number of IT students plummets
Bill Goodwin
bill.goodwin@rbi.co.uk
The UK is facing a shortage of skilled IT professionals
following a sharp decline in the number of graduates studying IT at
university, an industry report has warned.
The number of students studying IT over the past five years has
halved to 20,000 a year - far short of the 150,000 new graduates
estimated to be required by businesses.
The report, by Lancaster University Management School, the
British Computer Society and Microsoft, warned that without
concerted action the UK risked losing its position as a leading
software development centre.
The group said in-house and commercial software development
contributed more than £20bn a year to the UK economy.
Employers, universities and the government would need to
collaborate to improve the image of IT, the report warned.
Some 102,000 IT jobs, representing 12% of the total UK IT
workforce, will have been offshored by 2010. Even more employers
could be forced to look offshore if the skills shortfall was not
addressed, said Bola Rotibi, senior analyst at Ovum.
The report recommended:
l A rolling research programme to measure the impact of
offshoring on UK software development
l The creation of industry-standard certification for high-level
software development roles
l More rigorous certification to raise IT's professional
image
l Addressing the variation in quality of computer science
degrees.