The BCS review of IT undergraduate numbers should be the chancellor’s bedtime reading. After Gordon Brown’s warm words last month on the need for technology-enabled training for everyone if the UK is to maintain global competitiveness, one could be forgiven for some optimism. The perennial problem of UK skills has clearly reached the top table.

But almost immediately the skies clouded over.

First came the IDC research that ranked the UK lowest out of 10 European countries for basic IT skills (Computing, 8 February).

Now, at the other end of the spectrum, the BCS report shows computing undergraduate applications are down 40 per cent since 2001, seriously undermining the UK’s future pre-eminence in both technology research and industry.

The theory of the knowledge economy is compelling. Rather than going into decline as first manufacturing and now high-tech jobs move to developing economies such as India and China, mature markets such as the UK will maintain their position through the high-end knowledge-based skills built up by their commercial and academic head start.

Much of this analysis is valid. But the implication of the BCS research is that segmentation of the workforce into low-end and high-end skills – some of which may be safely outsourced, some kept at home – may not, in fact, be possible.

The incentive for school leavers to take computer science at university diminishes in parallel with the shrinking pool of jobs relevant to such a degree. Computing does not counsel resistance to the inevitable and continues as an advocate of the opportunities, rather than the threats, of globalisation.

But it is how such opportunities can be met that requires careful consideration, not least to ensure the requisite skills levels are developed despite declining prospects.

There is no obvious answer. But this is the question that the chancellor, and his successor, need to address.

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