IT-related degrees almost halved from 27,000 to 14,700 between 2001 and 2005
Employers want IT grads with business skills
14 Jun 2007, Lara Williams, Computing
http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1840575/employers-it-grads-business-skills
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.
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Re IT graduates are failing to fulfill the growing demand for skilled workers
To anyone who has worked in IT for any length of time it is not surprising that the industry is finding it difficult to get people with the right skills and experience. It's not a new phenomena and it's not restricted to university graduates. What we need is what we have always needed, collaboration among the main players - academic institutions, business, government and the students themselves. Anything less will only provide, at best, a partial solution.
Although it's not a new issue it is becoming increasingly significant. Whilst IT was something of a back room activity it had a much smaller impact. At the same time the organisations that were big enough to need large computer systems generally provided their own training and development programmes and to some extent still do. Now that IT has become an essential element of almost every business, the skills shortage has also become more obvious and needs a more intense and shared approach to deal with it.
The impact is also felt in the management of IT staff and projects. If we can't get the right people with the right skills into the industry in the first place, how are we to find the skills and abilities we need for management? That's part of the looming crisis and one of the reasons why so many IT projects fail.
A lack of forward thinking and inertia in the past has led directly to the current situation and it needs a much more radical approach to change things now. We have had similar reports in past years and still we stumble on with the same old approach. So, where are the visionaries who can champion the cause, wave the flag and push through the changes that are needed?
Posted by: Geoff Sissons 13 Jul 2007