UK is lagging on quality of IT staff not quantity, says tech chief

Egypt, India and China lead UK in IT education

Mark Kenealy: "Egypt is fast becoming a leading market for quality IT graduates."

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.