03 Aug 2010
The UK is falling behind on quality rather than quantity of IT graduates compared with overseas applicants, according to Orange Business Services UK & Ireland manager Mark Kenealy.
Speaking to Computing in London recently, the ex-head of EMC services explained that the IT education in countries such as China, Egypt and India is producing graduates with skills way ahead of those in the UK.
“Although the UK has a good calibre of IT graduates, there are pockets of real talent coming from these markets.
“Cairo is fast becoming a leader in the market for IT talent. We have offshore facilities in Cairo, and the staff there are just brilliant,” added Kenealy.
Kenealy argued that the offshoring industry as a whole was shifting, with the most talented graduates demanding higher salaries whatever their country of origin.
“We’re seeing some of the prices [for offshoring services] going up in India for example [because of the quality and aspirations of the IT graduates].”
Asked whether it was a drive by these governments to produce quality IT graduates or a determination by the people themselves to succeed, Kenealy said, “I think it’s a bit of both.”
“There has been a drive by governments, but IT skills are a great route out of a difficult country. they can make you globally saleable,” said Kenealy.
“When I advertised for two managerial jobs internally, I had two applications from people in the UK, six from Egypt and two from India,” said Kenealy.
Meanwhile, the quality of IT staff from countries such as India has been causing problems for the UK government as it battles with capping immigration from non-EU countries.
Last month, Home Secretary Theresa May set a temporary limit of 24,000 skilled non-EU workers allowed to migrate to the UK.
However, thousands of UK-based Indian IT staff were exempted from that limit, pending a decision on whether they should be included in the permanent cap scheduled to be imposed next April.
The problem of how to deal with skilled non-EU IT people in relation to the UK’s own IT graduates is complicated by an increase in demand for IT staff in the UK.
Recent figures from employment web sites CWJobs.co.uk and JobsAdWatch.co.uk show demand for IT staff rising by eight per cent in the past three months, despite a 21 per cent fall in the number of public sector IT jobs being advertised.
This insight should come as a warning. The fact that countries like China, Egypt and India can offer pools of ambitious talent, who can bring needed skills to our shores, should be a caution to the UK IT industry.
It takes years to nurture talented individuals to a level of expertise that worldwide industries depend upon. For the UK to stand a chance of becoming an established power within the IT industry, individual companies need to work together with the government to ensure IT graduates have the best possible resources and opportunities at their fingertips. The UK has the potential to generate the best home-grown talent but the foundations to do this need to be set in place first.
Furthermore, the UK IT industry needs to ensure that the current interest in new Web 2.0 technologies does not belittle the importance for developing expertise within core, business-critical IT systems. All subject areas of the IT industry need to be catered for so that the UK doesn't suffer any shortfalls.
It is the responsibility of business, government and academia alike to ensure investment today for the skills for tomorrow. The effect of a shortage of these essential skills is potentially disastrous, both for the IT sector and UK PLC as a whole.
Posted by: Arunn Ramadoss 05 Aug 2010
With no disrespect to Mark as a business leader; from a sales background, is he qualified to make this judgement?
Is he commenting on UK IT skills, or on the energy and entrepreneurship of foreign-educated workers? Neither of the latter attributes being reflections of IT quality.
I suspect (and hope) the latter may be colouring his judgement. I am happy to criticise our education system for producing too many Computer Science graduates and not enough Information Technology graduates, but a slur on their quality is unjustified. British-educated Computer Scientists are amongst the very best to be found anywhere, and they are not to blame if the state education system is channelling them in the wrong direction to be attractive IT employees.
As a wake up call to those academic institutions and leaders who value CompSci above IT Mark's comments are valid. As a comment on the quality of graduates I suggest that his opinions are misleading. We are producing insufficient IT graduates and too many CompSci graduates for the UK employment market - this doesn't reflect on their quality, it merely condemns the education system which is failing to meet market expectations and demands by providing the wrong further education for our talented young people.
Posted by: Steve Burrows FBCS CITP MIoD Dip IoD 04 Aug 2010
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