The most recent articles from IT Week

A better deal for the environment

Matthew lake — 2008-07-18T12:33:00.000Z

Matthew lake, IT Week, Friday 18 July 2008 at 12:33:00

The new head of corporate information systems at the Environment Agency talks about his career and how he plans to make government IT procurement greener

Simon Pitt thinks he has got the greatest job in IT. “What could be better than working for an organisation whose mission is ‘to create a better place’. It’s just the best objective ever,” he said.

Pitt became the new head of corporate information services at the Environment Agency in May, taking charge of a department comprising about 500 staff and with a budget of tens of millions. The Environment Agency is the largest organisation of its kind in Europe. It employs 12,000 people, most of whom work in its headquarters in Bristol, with the remainder spread across dozens of regional and area offices. Set up in 1995, it has an annual budget of £900m that it spends on a wide range of schemes that together aim to protect and improve the environment of England and Wales.

The agency’s work includes flood prevention programmes, anti-pollution initiatives, wildlife conservation projects and carbon trading schemes. Given all the good work the organisation does, it is easy to understand Pitt’s enthusiasm.

“Everything I’ve ever done has worked up to this. I’ve always had this ethos to try to improve life for people,” he said.

Pitt had plenty of scope to satisfy this urge to make a difference at one of his earlier postings. As director of information management at London Underground between 2002 and 2005, he was in charge of an IT overhaul that aimed to make the company a far more customer-centric organisation.

“When I joined London Underground I was given about 18 months to transform what was a very back-office and fragmented IT function into something that was focused on delivering a service to the people who ran the railway and the customers who used it,” Pitt said.

One of his main aims was to turn data held in London Underground’s 500 asset databases into useful information. “The goals were to deliver real-time service information to customers and minute-by-minute management information to the people running the railways,” he said. “We used a mix of ETL [extract, transform and load] tools, data marts and web technology to extract key bits of data, turn it into useful information and deposit it where someone could view it.”

The first stage of the project involved hooking up all the stations to a network. Unbelievably, when Pitt joined LU in 2002 most stations still did not have a networked PC. “Information was communicated from line control to stations by telephone. It could take an hour for information about a disruption to be passed on from the controller to the last station in the chain, by which time the incident would probably be over,” he said.

To further improve access to information, Pitt implemented a wireless network and deployed mobile devices to front-line staff.

Underpinning all this was a change of culture in the IT function. “We turned the department into a team that really understood the railway and was absolutely committed to delivering a better service and being an integral part of the business,” he said.

Improving services through better access to information is also one of Pitt’s key tasks at his new job. As part of the Environment Agency’s ongoing More, Better, Faster programme for IT, he is looking to improve knowledge sharing throughout the organisation.

“We’ve got lots of databases around the place but it’s a case of being data rich but knowledge poor,” he said. “We’ve got to improve this very rapidly. I’m working with the various operations within the agency to work out their priorities in terms of information needs, and working with the data management and knowledge teams to drive this forward.”

Pitt said his efforts to improve knowledge management are a vital component of the agency’s response to Sir Michael Pitt’s final report into the 2007 summer floods.

Published at the end of June, the Pitt Review is the culmination of a year-long inquiry that examined the emergency response to last summer’s flooding and investigated how the country can reduce the risk and impact of floods in the future.

In his formal response to the report, Environment Agency chief executive Paul Leinster stressed the urgent need for the country to learn lessons from the events of last year. “Last summer’s floods highlighted the urgency of adapting to the potential effects of climate change to protect lives, property, the economy and the environment. It’s clear that we are going to face less predictable weather and more extreme events such as flash flooding,” he said.

One of the Pitt Review’s main recommendations is that the Environment Agency should assume a strategic overview role for all types of flood risk in England. This new remit, which is enshrined in the government’s proposed Floods and Water Bill, is driving a range of data-sharing, forecasting and modelling initiatives at the agency. For example, this month the Environment Agency and the Met Office began piloting a new service to forecast and warn emergency services and critical infrastructure providers about extreme rainfall that could lead to surface water flooding.

The agency is also looking to integrate data from 110 of the Met Office’s real-time rain gauges into new, more detailed river forecasting models, which should lead to more timely flood warnings being issued and better decisions by flood forecasters.

The ability of the agency’s IT team to deliver these and other important innovations, such as new carbon trading and asset management systems, is closely tied up with what Pitt described as his number-one priority: the successful completion of “the most sustainable green government IT contract ever”.

Announced last December, the £750m 10-year contract will see a leading services provider take over responsibility for the Environment Agency’s day-to-day IT needs.

Pitt said the deal, which is on schedule to be completed by the end of the year, will leave him at the head of a smaller but more responsive in-house team that will concentrate on “providing and managing the strategic, business-focused aspects of IT”.

But the extent to which the move improves the agency’s ability to meet its strategic goals will not be the only measure of its success. Indeed for Pitt, there is a far bigger prize up for grabs.

“The deal will have very clear objectives for sustainability and green IT,” he said. “We will make sure the provider we appoint is absolutely committed to rolling this type of contract out both down through its supply chain and into its other outsourcing contracts.”

Pitt said he wants nothing less than to permanently embed green principles into all outsourcing procurement agreements. “If we can get the contract right and cascade it throughout the government sector it would be a real coup. And if we can get our outsourcing partner to put in standard green terms that it will then use in its private-sector contracts, then the benefit from that would be absolutely huge,” he added.

Pitt said the Environment Agency will work with the Cabinet Office’s Green IT Working Group to try to roll out the contract model throughout Whitehall and beyond. This task will join other initiatives through which the two bodies are seeking to promote greener business practices.

“We are working with the Green IT Working Group to develop top tips for reducing carbon emissions and balance score cards so people can measure their progress,” Pitt said. “We are also doing similar things with the BCS, Carbon Trust and Intellect.”

Not surprisingly, consideration for the environment is hard-wired into the agency’s working practices. “Sustainability and environmental impacts are factored into every business contract that we write,” Pitt said. “Also, we measure our mileage and ensure staff optimise their work patterns. On top of that, we use virtualisation and power-management software to try to reduce the impact of our systems.”

For Pitt, green business is simply good business. “Most of these things improve efficiency and effectiveness, and reduce cost. Any hard-nosed business should be looking to do this,” he said. “The key is to take simple steps, save some money and then reinvest those savings into more sophisticated solutions. If you can get that virtuous circle going you can constantly and consistently drive your green credentials up, while also saving money, and improving the condition of your IT and the services you are providing.”

E-skills set to launch new IT academy

Phil Muncaster — 2008-07-15T12:31:00.000Z

Phil Muncaster, IT Week, Tuesday 15 July 2008 at 12:31:00

IT skills body joins forces with BT to announce new plans

The UK's IT skills body, e-skills UK, and telecoms giant BT have announced proposals for a new National Skills Academy which they hope will help to raise the standard of the UK's IT workforce.

The announcement was made at an apprenticeships conference hosted by e-skills UK, BT and the Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network in London yesterday.

The Academy will form part of the National Skills Academy network, a government-led initiative which aims to have academies in 12 key sectors by the end of this year and in all "major sectors" by 2010.

The initiative requires employer sponsors, such as BT, to work in partnership with the relevant sector skills council and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to provide "employer-driven, world-class centres of excellence", according to the LSC.

The Academy's aims include helping IT staff to gain external recognition of their skills, and thus boost their career progression, according to e-skills. The institution will also look to accelerate the productivity of new IT recruits and increase employers' access to advanced courses and development programmes.

“There is great potential for the IT and Telecoms sector to attract more apprentices," said David Lammy, MP, at the event. "The work being done by e-skills UK and BT will be instrumental in improving productivity and extending opportunity."

Leader: UK is a land of IT opportunity

IT Week staff — 2008-07-15T12:25:00.000Z

IT Week staff, IT Week, Tuesday 15 July 2008 at 12:25:00

With skills and jobs on the wane tech graduates might be forgiven for being confused

The latest Association of Graduate Recruiters report has rather mixed messages for the UK IT industry.

University leavers wanting to join a technology firm face a difficult situation, as IT vendors respond to the dark clouds hanging over the economy. Employers in the technology sector have slashed vacancy numbers, making it much harder for graduates to find a suitable post.

On the other hand, the number of graduate vacancies for IT professionals working across all industries is at a healthy level, indeed many employers are concerned that demand will soon outstrip supply and are predicting skills shortages. This is great news for those graduates wanting to enter the IT profession, but it might be less welcomed by IT chiefs who face stiffer competition when filling vacancies.

So what conclusions can be drawn from the report about the long-term health of the UK IT industry?

Much of the skills focus recently has been on the rise of offshoring creating less demand for UK IT professionals, while the number of young people pursuing IT education has also fallen. These two factors seem to be related: it is difficult to persuade young people to study for a career in IT if they doubt there will not be a job waiting for them once they have qualified.

The AGR findings paint a different picture, highlighting that IT graduates are still very much in demand. Hopefully this information will filter through to young people and boost interest in IT as a career.

CIOs look to non-technical graduates to fill IT roles

Madeline Bennett — 2008-07-11T11:17:00.000Z

Madeline Bennett, IT Week, Friday 11 July 2008 at 11:17:00

Firms need to consider graduates from all disciplines for IT vacancies to counter skills gaps

Experts have advised firms to look to non-technical staff to fill IT vacancies, after a new graduate recruitment report highlighted concerns about a shortage of technology experts.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters Summer Review surveyed the hiring plans of 242 UK companies, which between them are looking to employ almost 24,000 graduates this year. It found that IT roles accounted for nine per cent of all graduate vacancies across those firms, which included industry giants such as BA, Deloitte and Oracle, making it fourth highest in the list of number of vacancies by career area.

But the report also highlighted concerns among UK businesses about filling their IT vacancies, as almost a quarter of respondents expected to be affected by an IT skills shortage.

Firms concerned about a lack of suitable candidates to fill their graduate IT roles should instead consider those with non-technical qualifications, according to industry insiders.

“You don’t always need to recruit someone who has an IT degree or a PhD in programming,” said Sandra Smith, head of information systems at Toshiba UK. “Graduates with a variety of non-technology degrees still have the ability to have a successful career in IT because these days IT is more about being able to manage projects successfully from start to finish, while working in a team and taking into consideration the business strategy and objectives.”

John Gillard, graduate programme manager for technology services at Capgemini, said the consulting firm has already been applying this approach to IT recruitment.

“Over the last couple of years, Capgemini has struggled to find sufficient graduates with the right combination of IT and consulting skills purely from the IT graduate pool. This is not because of a falling calibre in IT graduates, rather the overall impact of the falling numbers of graduates finishing with an IT degree,” he explained. “This has led us to look for graduates from all degree disciplines. We are looking for people who want to be business consultants with a passion for technology, and want to work in close partnership with our customers.”

Smith added that by failing to consider graduates from other disciplines for IT roles, non-technical companies are giving the impression that only a technology vendor will offer appropriate training and career advancement. “Offering on-the-job training or even an apprenticeship can ensure graduates are more attracted towards a job in IT,” she advised.

IT graduate salaries fall by £3,000

Madeline Bennett — 2008-07-10T16:34:00.000Z

Madeline Bennett, IT Week, Thursday 10 July 2008 at 16:34:00

AGR research reveals salary drop of 11 percent over past 18 months

IT graduate starting salaries have dropped by £3,000 over the past 18 months, according to research from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR).

The AGR’s Graduate Recruitment Survey 2008 Summer Review found that the median starting salary for IT roles is currently £25,000, placing it at fifth on the list of graduate salaries by career area. However, this represents a decrease of 11 percent since February 2007. According to the AGR’s 2007 Winter Review, the median salary for IT graduate roles was £28,000 at the start of last year.

This downward trend in pay is not reflected across other sectors. The current median starting salary for graduates is £24,500, up from £22,953 last February.

John Gillard, graduate programme manager for Technology Services at Capgemini, said that one explanation for the salary reduction could be that many traditional IT entrant roles are now being “successfully and efficiently” delivered from offshore.

“This means that businesses can afford to hire graduates from a non-IT background, who will also be able to carry out the consultancy-based parts of the job," he added.

Alex Thomson, IT director at Travelodge, said that despite the prospect of more competition to recruit technical graduates – the AGR research revealed that almost a quarter of firms were concerned about IT skills shortages – he did not expect to see hefty rises in starting salaries for technology roles, due to the tightening economic conditions.

Capacity planner dearth could stunt virtualisation growth

Dave Bailey — 2008-07-09T12:14:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Wednesday 9 July 2008 at 12:14:00

Firms face a few challenges when it comes to increasing their use of virtualisation

Firms thinking about increasing their virtualisation deployments, turning them into business critical production applications could run up against a skill shortage, according to the latest survey from market intelligence group IDC.

The survey, which polled 650 European firms including 141 UK companies, showed a large increase in the number of firms adopting virtualisation technology. IDC's systems group consulting and research director Chris Ingle said, "The majority of virtualisation is still for research and development purposes and easily virtualised network applications." However Ingle added that one of the biggest inhibitors to a successful rollout is a lack of expertise and skills.

Jonathan Priestley, global corporate strategist at business service management software firm BMC explained out that one of the major problems firms face is a lack of personnel skilled in the art of capacity planning, a technique universally employed for getting the best from mainframe computers. "Capacity planning is a dark art, predicting storage, network and processor utilisation for a bunch of applications running on a single piece of hardware is complex," said Priestley, adding, "You could compare resource sharing between virtualised applications to somebody drinking from a glass of water - as soon as you get more than one person wanting to drink from the same glass - things can get difficult."

As for virtualisation technology market share, Ingle said, "VMware is the clear market leader, with 82 per cent of firms polled using its software."

Microsoft will be hoping to increase its own share after its recent launch of Hyper-V, its hypervisor technology, since IDC's figures give Microsoft a 13 per cent share, with the Xen Linux hypervisor having 3 per cent and various Unix systems and mainframes accounting for 14 per cent.

Mixed outlook for IT recruitment

Madeline Bennett — 2008-07-08T11:33:00.000Z

Madeline Bennett, IT Week, Tuesday 8 July 2008 at 11:33:00

New report paints positive picture for IT graduates, but less rosy for those wanting to join tech firms

A new graduate recruitment report has revealed that while technology vendors are reducing their intake of new starters, IT professionals are in demand among UK businesses, despite the threat of a worsening economic climate.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters Summer Review surveyed the hiring plans of 242 UK companies, which between them will be responsible for employing almost 24,000 graduates this year. It found that IT roles accounted for nine percent of all graduate vacancies across those firms, which included industry giants such as BA, Deloitte and Oracle. Accountancy roles made up a fifth of vacancies, followed by investment banking, general management and then IT.

The median starting salary for IT graduate roles was £25,000 per year, coming in at fifth on the list of 20 professions and slightly above the average of £24,500. The highest salaries were for legal work and investment banking, both attracting a starting salary of £36,000.

The report also highlighted concern among UK businesses about a shortfall in IT expertise. Just under a quarter of respondents expected to be affected by an IT skills shortage, although only nine percent were worried about gaps in basic computer skills – far behind the 56 percent who were concerned that graduates would be lacking in adequate writing skills.

However, while those graduates wanting to enter the IT profession will be cheered by the healthy number of vacancies available, the outlook for the technology sector is less rosy.

The number of graduate vacancies at IT vendors has fallen 14 percent compared to 2007, placing it second from bottom of all industry sectors.Technology companies accounted for only two percent of all vacancies advertised across the 17 sectors.

The IT sector was also second on the list of number of applications per vacancy, making it a very tough market for graduates to enter. For every role advertised by a technology firm, 59 applications were received, compared to 31 applications per vacancy across all sectors.

New bill should alter IT inequality

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-06-30T15:53:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Monday 30 June 2008 at 15:53:00

Equality Bill is particularly positive for IT, says Intellect

According to UK IT trade body Intellect, the Equality Bill unveiled by women’s minister Harriet Harman will bring technology businesses long term benefits.

The bill builds on existing public sector equality duties, requiring public bodies to report on inequalities such as gender pay, and ethnic minority and disability employment. It will require public bodies to promote equality through purchasing contracts, which will increase the transparency of private sector organisations. Businesses will be encouraged to introduced a kite-mark system and abolish secrecy clauses that prevent people discussing their own pay.

The technology sector, which contributes around 10 percent of UK GDP, is one of the hardest hit UK industries by both the skills shortage and a low number of female employees, Intellect argued.

But Gillian Arnold, chair of Intellect’s Women in IT Forum, said Intellect would also like to see a more widespread adoption of equal pay audits, particularly by the private sector.

“Equal pay audits are inexpensive, are not time-consuming to conduct and are a valuable tool in the retention of women,” said Arnold. “In fact, 72 percent of women working in technology say that if a company has conducted an equal pay audit, it would encourage them to work for that company."

IT chiefs feel the squeeze as business leaders demand more for less

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-06-25T15:46:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Wednesday 25 June 2008 at 15:46:00

New survey says the IT function continues to be sidelined despite growing demands placed on it

IT managers are coming under increasing pressure to deliver more for less, while at the same time continue to be sidelined from business strategy. That’s the main finding of new research by independent networking forum CIO Connect.

In a survey of 66 senior IT professionals, 80 per cent of respondents said the biggest impact on IT departments in the coming few months would be increased demands to deliver value to the business, while 71 per cent predicted executive demands for cost containment would increase during the same period. Some 73 per cent of respondents said that in order to deliver more value from existing infrastructure they would increase their focus on business processes.

Judging by the results, IT departments continue to have a relatively small influence on wider business strategy, with just 40 per cent of respondents reporting that their chief information officer (CIO) had a place at the boardroom table. Only 20 per cent of IT managers believed IT was regarded as a strategic contributor to the business.

However, the findings also suggest that IT’s isolation may be self-inflicted. Some 47 per cent of respondents said their principal role was application development while just 13 per cent saw themselves as being business change agents.

Most respondents said their greatest strengths were in technology infrastructure and their biggest weaknesses in process design and management.

Speaking at a recent Forrester event, British Airways chief information officer Paul Coby argued that for IT to be more appreciated by the board, it needed to work with business metrics and understand business requirements. “The main thing businesses want is faster IT with a can-do attitude,” he said. “Think how you come across to the CEO and the leadership team.”

Virtual worlds can cut staff training costs, says Gartner

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-06-23T15:29:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Monday 23 June 2008 at 15:29:00

IT needs to spell out the benefits of virtual world technology

According to a new report by analyst firm Gartner, IT chiefs should emphasise the reduced staff training costs that virtual world technology can bring when building a business case.

The report argued businesses hesitate to invest in virtual world projects because they lack proven benefits, but Gartner analyst Steve Prentice, said “Despite understandable concerns about investment during a time of growing business uncertainty, we believe that the internal deployment of virtual worlds offers most enterprise significant benefits in cost savings and improved productivity.”

Gartner pointed to the use of virtual environments in training emergency services and the military because of its lower cost than established training methodologies. Trainees can still interact with each other and their trainers, as well as stream media into the virtual world and embed documents into display objects, the report pointed out.

Virtual world deployment can also be used in businesses worldwide product launches that involve training, presentations and project planning, the report added. This will eliminate the need to bring employees from different worldwide locations and reduce associated travel costs.

Students think a career in IT will be boring

David Neal — 2008-06-23T12:17:00.000Z

David Neal, IT Week, Monday 23 June 2008 at 12:17:00

Students think that a career in IT will be financially rewarding, but very tedious

The British Computer Society has been polling students on their attitudes to a career in IT. The future, according to respondents, appears bleak.

The research, released through the BCS by CRAC, the Career Development Organisation, polled some 2000 students, and was described by the BCS as major. Overall it found that although the majority of respondents thought that the profession offered up good prospects for well-paid jobs, they also believed that such roles would be unfulfilling, or boring.

“Over 60% of non-computing students cited boring work as the main reason they would not join the sector,” said, CRAC Development Director Robin Mellors-Bourne. “Employers should be able to counter that kind of perception. We found that very few of the students hold negative perceptions about the IT profession or its people."

“Greater exposure of young people to the merits of a job in the IT sector is vital, we need to show them the variety of roles in IT and the importance that IT carries today – IT is at the heart of business these days and there are real opportunities now to have a career in IT which will ultimately lead to a position on the board,” added Mike Rodd, director of BCS Learned Society.

The research also highlighted a difference in opinions held between male and female students, said, Mellors-Bourne, "The survey suggests that many women will be attracted by the impact that IT projects have in other sectors and areas of life, while the men tend to like the technical projects”.

Firms overlook e-recruitment

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-06-20T13:18:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Friday 20 June 2008 at 13:18:00

The Chartered Management Institute says UK firms miss out on talent

New research suggests firms are missing out on talent, particularly from ethnic minorities, because they overlook the potential of e-recruitment.

The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) surveyed 1,350 managers from a range of minority groups. It found that internet searches were the second most popular method for job hunting among those polled (after newspapers), yet only 11 per cent reported finding suitable openings.

This suggests the majority of firms overlook the possibilities of e-recruitment, said Steven Timms, employment minister.

“This study shows that it is vital that employers take a close look at the methods they use to attract new recruits,” he said in a statement.

Managers aged under 30 were eight times more likely to use online searches than those aged over 50.

"It should be a key concern for employers because they run the risk of wasting a talent pool that already exists," said Jo Causon, director, marketing and corporate affairs.

Never mind Houston - we don't have a problem

David Neal — 2008-06-19T11:19:00.000Z

David Neal, IT Week, Thursday 19 June 2008 at 11:19:00

Thanks to Asus and RM, IT chiefs can look forward to an easier life as tech-savvy users enter the workplace

The other day, I attended a breakfast briefing at a rather posh London restaurant where the main subject of discussion was why the Asus Eee PC may just be the saviour of our future generations.

Whitney Houston famously sang, “Children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way . . .”. Frankly, I found this advice to be insultingly obvious even when I was a child.

So, Whitney, you think children are our future, do you? Well, so do the rest of us. What makes you so special that you have to bother my ears about it, and what have you got to do with it anyway?

To be fair, between alternating bouts of rehab and career comebacks, Houston has possibly done a lot for the world’s deprived ankle-biters. I considered looking up her charitable contributions on Wikipedia, but then it dawned on me that I couldn’t really be bothered.

For the sake of a lawsuit-free existence, I’m going to assume that she has done a huge amount to bring succour to kids everywhere. But one thing she definitely hasn’t done, is launch a cheap, ultra-portable Windows-based laptop that appeals to both teachers and students. Despite banging on about the need “to teach them well”, she never had the foresight to develop a powerful yet affordable teaching tool like the Eee PC. Oh, Whitney. Was it all just words?

Well, step aside Houston, because Asus and RM are here “to lead the way”. Having played around with it for a few days, I can attest that the Eee PC is an impressive bit of kit that should appeal to mobile workers and students alike.

But it was the needs of the education market that dominated all the videos and speeches that took place as I gorged myself on eggs and bacon. As I sunk my teeth into my last grilled mushroom, RM chief executive Tim Pearson opined, “IT skills will be more important to children than hand writing skills.” At this point a video of some kids in school kicked in a wise move bearing in mind that at 8.30 in the morning, most journalists need all the help they can get to grasp a concept. “Kids at school now will still be at work in 2070,” he added. The horror.

Pearson described how he had travelled extensively, looking at schools and discovering how children learned, and what facilities they had available to them. He had been to schools that had experimented with PDAs and laptops, and found that neither students nor teachers had really enjoyed the experience. But in those schools that are currently using Asus machines, headteachers talk about how much enjoyment students get out of using the machines, while the students themselves praise the devices for helping them to get the most out of their studies at this point I nearly choked on my sausage.

It wasn’t like that in my day. I remember vividly that time at university when my friends and I once trapped a PC in a box and tried to feed it. When that failed, we attempted to skin it and nearly burned down the common room. Hardly anyone I knew had a clue about computers, nor how to use them.

Now, thanks to the sterling efforts of companies such as Asus and RM, tomorrow’s school leavers will enjoy relationships with computing technology of Hawking-esque intimacy.

For IT managers, this could mean an opportunity to free up helpdesk resources to focus on more valuable tasks. Stupid support requests will be a thing of the past as most users will be tech-savvy enough to perform most administrative tasks. Indeed, there may well come a day when IT chiefs simply stand back and “let users lead the way”. We could call it “doing a Whitney”.

Why firms must combat female aversion to IT

David Neal — 2008-06-17T12:10:00.000Z

David Neal, IT Week, Tuesday 17 June 2008 at 12:10:00

Women and the IT sector are losing out through their failure to appreciate what each can do for the other

A new report commissioned by The Council of Professors and Heads of Computing in the UK (CPHC) warns that a decline in the number of UK students studying technology could have damaging repercussions for the economy.

A Study on the IT Labour Market in the UK reveals a widening gap between the number of people completing higher education technology courses and the number of vacant IT posts within UK organisations. It found that the number of IT graduates had fallen by almost 17 per cent between 2004 and 2007 to its lowest level since 2002. Meanwhile, the IT labour market is expected to grow by almost 200,000 posts by 2016, leading the study authors to warn of a high likelihood of skills shortages impacting technology projects over the coming years.

But do UK organisations really have to go through the trauma of yet another IT skills crisis? Rob Chapman, the chief executive of IT education company Firebrand Training, believes this fate could be averted if the industry did more to shake off its reputation of being dominated by men. He said the sector suffers because most female graduates find careers in IT unattractive. This view is likely to be reinforced by a recent survey of women already working in the sector by networking portal Womenintechnology, which found that 41 per cent of respondents have no confidence in their ability to pursue a long career in IT.

Some respondents were unsure of what career paths would be open to them, and could not say whether a move into middle management was likely. Just under two-thirds said that they did not have a clear vision of where their career would take them. “I know where I would like to be but I’m not sure how to get there,” said one respondent.

Chapman said the main reason why so few women consider IT careers is that there is a widespread misconception that the work is highly complex and only suitable for geeks.

“This image problem is created by two things: the industry and the media. The industry is at fault because of the way it shrouds itself in mystery, making IT look like something of a black art,” he said. “Meanwhile, the media stereotypes IT workers as beardy-wierdy sandal wearers with BO. It doesn’t have to be like that. The law is not a fantastically exciting working environment, but you get television shows like LA Law that make it look glamorous. We get Channel 4’s The IT Crowd and a great deal of negative stereotyping.”

Chapman argued that the lack of women in technology-related roles is doubly unfortunate because females tend to have many of the attributes that make for a successful IT career.

“There is a danger in making sweeping generalisations about anyone, but when I think of the key skills needed in a modern IT role, many of them apply to women,” he said. “Think about a project manager: they have to be out there speaking to people, they have to be personable, they have to be able to work in teams and be creative, and women do tend to be more organised.”

Maggie Berry, director of Womenintechnology, agreed that the image the IT industry projects does create problems, but added that these were not insurmountable. “There are some fantastic jobs in IT that are well paid, varied and interesting. It is a shame that few women realise this,” she said.

Other concerns highlighted in the Womenintechnology survey, which was conducted at the recent How to Get Ahead in IT event, revolved around the issue of maternity leave, with some respondents worried that they would have difficulty in returning to work after having a baby. However, Chapman said new technologies, as well as employment legislation, meant these fears were unfounded. IT roles are incredibly suited to home working, he said, making it relatively easy for women to balance the demands of work and motherhood.

“IT roles are often not office- or time-based, and in fact I often think that some people would get more done at home, without all the distractions in the office,” Chapman said. “Of course, returning to work after having a family has its challenges, and although I am not a big fan of over-legislating, I can see how rules [regarding maternity leave] can help.”

However, Berry pointed out that while IT roles lend themselves to flexible working, many companies remain wedded to an office-bound culture. She said that in many firms, line managers do not have the skills or experience necessary to manage remote workers.

Berry argued that this failure to provide women with both a clear career path and job flexibility is not only deterring women from entering the sector, but is also causing those already in IT roles to quit the industry. “Firms spend so much money hiring people, they should put as much effort into retaining them. If you want to keep the women that you have, you should provide them with an idea of what their future might bring,” she said.

Have IT chiefs got their priorities wrong?

2008-06-12T17:01:00.000Z

IT Week, Thursday 12 June 2008 at 17:01:00

The issue of consumer influence on IT purchasing should be higher up the CIO agenda

Last month, IT Week celebrated its 10th anniversary and to mark the occasion we carried out some research into enterprise IT priorities, canvassing the opinions of those who really are in the know - our readers.

Some of the findings made predictable reading, with those hardy perennials cost cutting and security emerging as the two biggest issues facing IT chiefs at present.

Other findings, however, were more intriguing. For example, only 14 per cent of IT Week readers rated recruitment or staffing as one of their top three priorities, compared with about 42 per cent for both reducing costs and security. This result is surprising considering the increasing degree of concern expressed by industry experts about forthcoming IT skills shortages.

These experts point to the falling number of young people taking technology subjects at school and university, and going on to a career in the sector. Many commentators blame the rise in offshoring for the drop in new UK talent. They argue that a growing appetite among organisations for offshore services has led to a widespread perception among young people that career opportunities in IT for indigenous workers are worsening.

To counter this perception, various schemes have been developed to attract young people into the industry, to ensure the UK can hold its ground against competition from emerging economies, such as India and China.

But surely, if an IT skills crisis is looming on the horizon, more of our readers senior IT managers in large organisations would have picked staffing and recruitment above issues such as information management, innovation and consolidation. The results indicate that IT managers are confident they can fill vacancies, and put a question mark over the value of promoting so many different schemes to boost the number of IT workers.

Another area that failed to generate much interest among our readership was the so-called consumerisation of IT. This phrase refers to the impact of consumer technology use on enterprise IT adoption, an issue that analyst firm Gartner previously predicted would heavily influence corporate technology procurement between 2007 and 2012.

However, less than a fifth of IT Week readers cited this trend as one of the top issues that would impact the industry going forwards rating it less important than Web 2.0, green technology and the growing influence of India and China.

While I can understand the lack of votes for staffing and recruitment possibly because UK IT leaders are already looking to the East to fill future skills gaps the seemingly low influence of consumer technology trends on enterprise IT purchasing is more surprising.

As the latest 3G iPhone hits the shelves and more vendors jump on the mini-laptop bandwagon two highly-coveted items that have captured the imagination of consumers and business users alike IT chiefs will face growing pressure from employees to support devices and applications designed primarily for non-corporate purposes. They will also come under increasing pressure from senior management to crack down on any potential problems arising from this trend.

I am sure that if we carry out a similar survey to this one in 2013, to mark IT Week’s 15th anniversary, the consumerisation of IT will have risen up the ranks as a significant industry trend although I am also willing to bet that cost cutting and security will still be up there as the biggest challenges facing companies.