05 Oct 2009
IT professionals fear the sector could suffer from a "brain drain" as they start questioning the future of their careers, according to research.
Some 76 per cent of 261 respondents polled by recruitment specialist The IT Job Board said the UK could be at risk of losing its expertise.
Further reading
Offshoring was cited as the main driver for the potential depletion of technical personnel by 39 per cent of those polled, followed by contract rate reductions (28 per cent) and concerns over long-term career development (27 per cent).
Relocation is a possibility for 80 per cent of the respondents, with 61 per cent considering a move to Australia and 59 per cent to the US.
“The UK IT sector cannot afford to lose key individuals with specific technical knowledge and skills, both during the recession, and as we approach a possible upturn,” said head of marketing at The IT Job Board, Jamie Bowler.
“The responsibility lies with employers to maintain competitive rates, and to offer attractive career opportunities to staff with core employees. Only then can we work towards avoiding brain drain in the UK IT sector,” said Bowler.
I'd like to point out that the UK is not alone in facing this issue. It seems to me that all economies, as they mature, experience cost inflation and so find some IT work is off-shored and some IT professionals consider what their future is. Here in Poland, where we only recently became an offshore software development destination ourselves, we are already starting to see some work being off-shored to other locations. While this is not yet happening on the scale it is in the UK or some other countries, I expect that one day it will reach a similar level. I don't think that this means, either for the UK or for Poland, that there isn't any place for a local IT sector.
Posted by: Jaroslaw Czaja, www.future-processing.com 01 Nov 2009
Hello? Survey done by a recruitment agency that concludes that salaries are not enough. The recruitment agencies make commision on size of salaries. Hence, to make more money they need all wages accross the board to be raised. How do you achieve this? Simples. Scaremongering, the good old fashioned New Labour way (aka Spin to you and me). My answer to this is simple. Who wants to go somewhere else, let them. The alternative is employers pay higher wages, hence lose more contracts because they simply can't be competitive anymore and they eventually end up going bust or simply cannot afford to keep as many people employed. So what's worse? How stupid do these people think we are?
Posted by: Anon 08 Oct 2009
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