IT degree upsurge a temporary reprieve

The number of candidates applying for degrees has risen 12 per cent this year

This year there has been a massive oversubscription to degree courses across the board and IT degree courses have also witnessed increased competition for places, but this nothing short of a temporary reprieve in terms of tackling the attractiveness of IT as a career choice, experts are warning.

Despite huge growth in demand for staff across the IT industry, the proportion of university entrants opting for IT courses has slumped, as the attractiveness of a technology-related career reaches an all-time low.

The IT professional workforce is forecast to grow at four times the average for the UK, according to skills body e-skills UK and it will need 500,000 new entrants over the next five years.

Despite record successes at A-Level, and a record 12 per cent rise in applications for universities this year, today’s A-level results confirm fears that the UK is not producing the new IT talent so desperately needed by the industry.

Figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications highlighted a 2.4 per cent drop in the number of students taking IT-related A-levels compared with 2009, marking a 24 per cent slump in the number of people who took IT-related A-levels since 2005.

Meanwhile, the number of students passing A-level computing, which explores hardware, software and programming techniques, slumped by 13.7 per cent, compared to 2009 figures, to just 4,065.

More business-oriented A-level ICT saw a marginal 2 per cent increase, with 12,186 students taking the course.

Dr Andrew Tuson, assistant dean for student recruitment at City University London's department of computing, said: “The government issued funding for an extra 10,000 places on technology degree courses this year and that will have made a bit of a difference. Applications to computing courses went up roughly in line with other courses. But the real longer-term issue is the perception of IT careers. We still have to sort out the issue of IT teaching in schools.”

Bob Clift, head of higher education programmes at e-skills UK, told Computing that the skills body was actively campaigning for a reform of the GCSE curriculum. “These things take time. It’s a worry if we don’t get the right students on to IT courses and university. One thing we’re encouraged about is applications to employer-led degrees.”

There are now 13 Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degrees designed by some of the biggest employers in the IT industry, including British Airways, IBM and Procter and Gamble.

“We’ve had a reasonable number of graduates from these courses – and they’re getting good jobs, quickly with good companies," added Clift. "If employers invest in programmes with universities, we can produce high-quality candidates.”

And yet almost half the UK’s top CIOs claim that key skill shortages within their IT departments are hitting performance and collectively costing their organisations millions of pounds, according to a report, Supporting Business: The CIO Challenge, published by IT consultancy Xantus at the end of July.

Steve Watmough, CEO at Xantus, said the report showed it had become increasingly difficult to recruit people with the right blend of technology and business skills, and there was no sign of the situation improving.

“IT projects often have a habit of failing because people tend to get carried away with the technology and writing lots of code, when they really need to channel their energy into how they will derive the business benefits from the technology as quickly and efficiently as possible."