With the threat of aneconomic slowdown hanging over many parts of the private
sector, the public sector looks like a
recession-proof refuge for IT staff. Following theGershon Reviewlooking at how the
public sector can be made more efficient, the government continues
to pour money into IT projects that will support more efficient
ways of working. But which parts of the public sector offer the
best openings for IT professionals?
At present, central government and the NHS offer the biggest
opportunities for developers, project managers and infrastructure
architects. A number of departments are ramping up for big
projects. These include the Ministry of Defence with the
Defence Information Infrastructure initiative, and the Home
Office with its e-borders project to provide enhanced tracking of
people entering and leaving the UK. New infrastructure is also
needed to support the demands of the Lyons Review for central
government to relocate jobs away from the South East to other
regions.
In the NHS, meanwhile, the Connecting for Health project
continues to generate requirements for staff able to deploy
large-scale applications, especially on the infrastructure and
networking side. "Hospital and primary care trusts are gearing up
to introduce the systems provided by the centre," says Giles
Sumner, business development manager with recruitment consultancy
Computer People. "Rather than being about local systems
development, it is about getting those packages rolled out into the
NHS estate."
One of the key issues for all these projects is scalability. For
example, the new Oracle-based human resources and payroll system
for the NHS will cover 1.2 million staff. "There may still be a
perception that IT in the public sector does not offer the same
opportunities as the private sector, but that is no longer the
case," says Simon Shobrook, a managing consultant with recruitment
consultancy Hudson. "Central government is developing bespoke,
complex applications of the kind no one has done before.
Departments and agencies want people with a broad design view,
architecture and development expertise, and business analysis
skills who can deliver brand-new applications. They are not looking
for IT people who only want to turn out new versions of the same
systems they have done over and over before."
Across the public sector, there is also a widespread move
towards introducing shared services for functions such as finance,
human resources and IT itself. Although several projects have
struggled to deliver benefits, Shobrook says there have been enough
successes - in the Prison Service, for instance - that others have
been encouraged to follow suit. Sumner says these projects are
calling for experience in large-scale database management, service
oriented architectures and programme management. In addition,
Shobrook points out, after the recent public outcry over lost data,
central government is ramping up recruitment of security and data
protection specialists.
While central government is buzzing, activity in the local
government arena is quieter. After heavy investment in recent years
in areas such as citizen relationship management
and
e-enablement of council services, local authorities appear to
be going through a period of consolidation. Although there are
still many ongoing initiatives to improve back-office processes and
service delivery for citizens, Richard Protherough, new business
manager at Spring Technology, the IT recruitment arm of the Spring
Group, says the focus in councils is currently on recruiting
support and maintenance staff.
There is also a split when it comes to the kind of career
development you can look for in the public sector. Protherough says
the big projects being undertaken by the NHS and central government
departments offer the best opportunities for rapid promotion within
a particular specialism. By contrast, working for a local authority
or a smaller agency will allow you to pick up a broader range of
skills as you move across projects or provide cover for colleagues.
Another reason why central government departments and the larger
agencies may offer a more structured and coherent career path for
IT staff is that Shobrook sees many of these organisations taking
steps towards creating more professional IT departments. CIOs and
human resources departments are working to identify the skill
needed, fill any gaps and put in place better structures to attract
and retain staff.
Moreover, although the public sector has a reputation for
lagging behind sectors such as finance when it comes to new
technology, many of the current crop of central government projects
are using cutting edge approaches and offering great opportunities
to cross-train in the latest technologies. For instance, central
government projects are leading the way in the use of biometrics
and smartcards, and in the implementation of shared services using
products from vendors such as SAP. "With the private sector also
embracing smartcards and shared services, there is a steady flow of
candidates with public sector experience in those areas moving into
the private sector," says Matt Gascoigne, national manager of the
IT business at recruiter Badenoch & Clark. "Experience of
technologies such as SAP in the private sector will also stand you
in good stead when apply for roles in the public sector."
He suggests you are also likely to find better basic salaries
and a greater tendency towards flexible working in central
government compared with local government and the NHS, both of
which are constrained by standardised pay scales. "Although civil
service pay bands are more usual in local government and the NHS,
central government employers - especially in the South East - do
recognise they have to offer commercially competitive packages,"
Sumner says. However, all parts of the public sector offer generous
holiday allowances, good pensions and, Protherough says, "because
the public sector has an issue with costs and salaries, it looks to
attract people into permanent posts through excellent internal
development and training."