Employers want IT grads with business skills

IT-related degrees almost halved from 27,000 to 14,700 between 2001 and 2005

One in five employers are not recruiting IT graduates because they lack business acumen, despite a rising demand for skilled workers.

And 40 per cent of employers consider the level of business and non-technical skills of the IT graduates they do recruit to be inadequate, says research by sector skills body e-Skills UK.

Most computer science degrees do not develop business skills, according to Ashley Braganza, senior lecturer at Cranfield University School of Management.

‘The communication and business sense of computer science graduates is not very highly developed as they learn programming and technical aspects, and are poor at communicating complex business ideas,’ he said.

Steve Molyneux, director of education organisation Learning Lab, says IT graduates are simply not interested in acquiring non-technical skills.

‘IT is being sold incorrectly to students who are finding information technology boring because they tend to get enjoyment through the creative programming of traditional computer science,’ said Molyneux.

But he says project management and budgeting skills are key to developing an IT career.

This gap between the expectations of students and employers may have dramatic consequences for the UK’s competitive edge in the global economy, says Albert Ellis, chief executive of recruitment consultancy Harvey Nash.

He says by 2012 an extra 19,000 skilled IT and telecommunications workers will be needed in the UK as demand rises for e-commerce and software specialists.

‘The growing demand will worsen the skills gap and we will have to bring workers from India and China to fill jobs,’ said Ellis.

A Microsoft report issued last week says the IT industry is growing five to eight times faster than other sectors and needs 150,000 new entrants each year.

But those choosing IT-related degrees almost halved from 27,000 to 14,700 between 2001 and 2005.