IT professionals will have to be flexible, say business leaders

IT professionals will need to be flexible and become technology generalists if they are to meet the needs of UK plc over the next three years.

That is the view of business leaders and industry specialists about the chances for a generation of IT professionals preparing to move into IT director and chief information officer (CIO) positions.

John Worth, CIO of Prudential, says individual flexibility and adaptability are more important than specific skills.

He says the ability of the IT professional to take on new skills and move into new areas will be vital to companies over the next three years, particularly businesses that have established their needs and methods for cross-training professionals.

'Companies that develop creative ways for employees to learn, including networking routes, communities of practice, and focus groups, will be creating an integrated culture of learning that allows teams to take responsibility for their own development,' he says.

As a result, Worth says, technical skills are not necessarily relevant for a professional looking to move into an executive position.

'There could be a need to be familiar with the IT environment within the company, but not necessarily to be competent in IT skills,' he says.

Worth says it is more important that up and coming technology professionals exhibit specific management capabilities. These include:

Business acumen, leadership qualities and communication skills

The ability to be adaptable, because industry changes so quickly, and to learn and make connections

The capacity to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information

Wider business knowledge, outside IT, and the drive and desire to succeed.

Worth believes there should be a shift away from the professional expert towards a technology generalist - and his sentiments are backed by other experts in the industry.

Sandra Smith, IS director at Toshiba UK, says professionals looking to move into an executive role need a broad range of skills.

Over the next three years, she expects that IT professionals will need to develop skills in three main areas to meet the needs of UK plc.

Web site and web services development skills, she says, will be key - especially professionals who can internet-enable transaction processing systems.

'People who can develop the web front-end and understand the major back-end systems are pretty rare,' says Smith.

Professionals skilled in TCP/IP and digital communication - and who can apply their basic understanding to all kinds of connectivity and technology issues - will also be in high demand.

A holistic approach and design skills are also in short supply, and Smith believes managers would be well-advised to brush up on their security skills.

'There seem to be very few people who can understand the total environment in which a system has to operate, particularly if that environment encompasses the outside world,' says Smith.

'People who can write web sites don't understand firewalls and security; people who understand encryption do not understand credit checking; people who understand system performance do not understand links to carrier web sites and identify theft.

'Because we have specialists for each relatively small area, that adds communications overheads, restricts creativity and adds cost.'

With UK companies continuing to make technology systems integral to their business processes, experts believe that well-skilled IT professionals should be able to have a good selection of potential projects during the next three years.

Carl Dawson, IT director of Thomas Cook, says the state of the IT job market is quite healthy, because a lot of the demand for IT professionals is being swallowed up by large-scale initiatives, such as the NHS IT programme.

Workers moving into the profession and reacting to this demand could be working for an outsourcer or in-house department. Requirements for an IT professional will differ over the next three years depending on the nature of your employer, says Dawson.

'In IT service providers, there are all the traditional skills that I would recognise in a traditional IT department, such as programming and testing, but skills in private companies are becoming centred on that technical knowledge - but having much more of a business focus,' he says.

Demand, however, should not be taken for granted. Fahri Zihni, ICT director at Aston University, says more professionals should start to prove their abilities through certification.

'With greater sophistication in the management of networking, communications and security, one would expect more professionals with accredited qualifications,' he says. 'However, applications and software development tends to vary a lot over time, so the best thing to do here is probably to leave it to the marketplace to respond to these demands.'

Generalists will probably be best placed to exploit opportunities at the managerial level over the next three years. But the marketplace for IT professionals will probably be dominated by a number of key skills.

Lisa Jobson, manager of recruitment firm Harvey Nash's managed services department, says important skills for IT professionals in the next three years will include compliance requirements, open source technologies, and an awareness of the business issues facing an organisation outside the IT department.

Networking and .Net skills will also increase in demand over the next three years, says the Training Camp's founder Robert Chapman.

He says Microsoft's success with .Net, particularly with C# and VB.Net, has created a shortage of trained, qualified and experienced application developers.

The deployment of on-demand computing, storage area networks and thin clients will also drive the need for networking professionals.

And Chapman says programme management and high-level business security accreditation, such as ISC2 and CISSP, will allow IT professionals to climb the corporate career ladder.

What the experts say

John Worth, chief information officer, Prudential

There should be a shift away from the expert towards the generalist which results in a far more flexible and efficient workforce. Our training and development reflects this through our soft skills development and cross-skilling initiatives.

Sandra Smith, IS director, Toshiba UK

To move into an executive position, managers need appreciation and enthusiasm, a holistic approach and design skills - and they need to put in the hard graft. I believe most good managers have worked for a good manager.

Fahri Zihni, ICT director, Aston University

With greater sophistication in the management of networking, communications and security, one would expect more professionals with accredited qualifications.