The number ofcomputing studentsin universities and
collegeshas dropped almost 50% since 2001 to below 1996
levels, prompting fears thatIT departments are on the verge of a new skills
shortage.
The shortfall, revealed in a
study commissioned by IT professors and heads of computing of
the UK's leading universities and colleges, coincides with
rising demand from businesses for skilled IT professionals.
The study predicts that
demand for IT skills will grow 15% over the next 8 years as
businesses
and the public sector prepare for long-overdue IT
infrastructure and business application upgrades.
"CIOs will have to be more selective about where they deploy the
skills they can get rather than the traditional IT approach of
running as many projects as the business can fund," said Andy Kyte,
research fellow at Gartner.
Academics claim that, without intervention, there will be a
serious shortfall in the number of professionals with the computing
knowledge needed to support the growth of the UK's knowledge
economy in the next eight years.
Lachlan MacKinnon, executive committee member of the UK's
Council of Professors and Heads of Computing (CPHC) which
commissioned the study, said government investment between 1996 and
2001 almost doubled student numbers to meet industry needs, but
since then funding had been cut back by almost £100m a year.
"We would like to see the government actively encouraging and
providing the mechanism for more students to study computing to
address the imbalance," he said.
Ollie Ross,
head of research at The Corporate IT Forum (Tif), said, "The
differentiator for the UK will be on the development of combined
business and IT skill sets.
"UK educators must focus on providing businesses with
high-calibre graduates who understand the commercial application of
IT."
Lachlan MacKinnon, professor of information & knowledge
engineering at the University of Abertay Dundee, said there was a
desperate need to restore government funding. This should be used
to attract people with other degrees into post graduate programmes
in the short term and boost computing levels in the longer term,
said MacKinnon.
He also called for the introduction of US-style tax breaks to
encourage UK industry to invest more heavily in university
qualifications.
Read more about the skills shortage:
Skills shortages are key challenge for UK, says Cabinet Office
Strategy Unit>>
Government outsources to overcome skills shortage, government CIO
says>>
IT skills shortage at two-year low>>