Software assurance firm recruits testers

Key software analytical skills in demand

Software assurance firm Tescom is to recruit 100 UK staff to cope with increased demand for its testing services.

The company says it needs new staff with specialist skills to meet growing requirements from large organisations that want to be able to assess and test software products before installing them in a live environment.

Tescom’s UK managing director, Neil Goodall, says there is a shortage of IT professionals working to pursue a career in software testing.

‘Testers have to have really good analytical skills, and be able to look across a whole deployment project and software system,’ he said.

‘When we’re busy, we’re very busy. So taking on new people meets a basic capacity issue.’

Staff recruited this year are likely to work on a number of enterprise resource planning projects in major organisations, and on a recently signed contract with broadcaster BSkyB.

‘We’re helping BSkyB to make savings across a number of projects,’ said Goodall.

‘But essentially we do quality assurance. Software testing is traditionally seen as one of the last, small parts of the deployment phase of a project, whereas we embed it in the process from the beginning.’

Demand for assurance testing is increasing among businesses to mitigate the risk of project delays and escalating costs at the user acceptance and testing phases, says Goodall.

Tescom employs 650 testers operating from seven locations worldwide, 150 of whom are based in the UK.