Businesses are finding it harder to hire IT staff with
the right skills, a survey from the National Computer Centre has
found.
Just fewer than 40% of respondents indicated specific
recruitment and retention issues, a significant increase on the 29%
reported last year. In many cases shortages are seen as a
recruitment rather than a retention issue as 73% of those
indicating the need for new skills plan to acquire them by
re-skilling and training existing staff.
The NCC said that people
with Oracle, SAP, .NET, web development, network support, business
analysis and project management skills would be in high demand over
the next two years. With the current trend towards the adoption of
virtualisation technologies, professionals with VMware
experience and skills will be equally highly prized.
Ian Jones, NCC's head of content, said, "With some skills moving
into shortage, employers should be planning and budgeting for how
best to acquire these skills now. It is an unwelcome message but
they should be prepared for the extra cost."
The overall rate of perceived shortages, has increased from 4.2%
last year to 6.8% this year, the highest shortage level reported by
NCC's research in the past decade.
The
NCC's Benchmark of IT Salaries and Employment Trends report
surveyed 244 organisations which provided salary and employment
details for 5,493 IT staff.