Fresh IT skills crisis looms

IT leaders admit severe difficulties filling roles with some open for over a year, as staff look around for better deals following 18 months of tougher working conditions created by the pandemic

Organisations are struggling to fill technology roles as a fresh IT skills crisis looms.

Businesses across all verticals are finding recruitment far harder than usual, with Computing's sister titles reporting similar headaches in the financial sector.

According to a recent report called ‘Labour Market Outlook' from CIPD, a membership body for HR professionals, ICT is the sector with the most roles to fill, behind only healthcare.

Jacqueline de Rojas CBE, President of techUK, told Computing that tech hiring is at its highest level for five years and has surged past pre-pandemic levels.

"Since February 2021, there have been consistently over 100,000 tech job vacancies per week. Even at the height of the first lockdown, when the economic impacts of the pandemic were being felt across all industries, thousands of jobs requiring digital skills were being advertised - and yet, most of them remain unfilled. The skills gap and the talent gap has widened.

"While techUK and its members are working together to narrow this gap, the digital skills gap is not unique to the UK, making tech talent in high demand across competitive global markets. It is also true to say that every company has tech at its heart so the demand is even higher as our dependency on technology grows."

Many IT leaders confirmed the skills crisis. Steve Capper, Global CIO at professional services firm SNC Lavalin, explained that some roles are taking over a year to fill.

"The pandemic has doubled the existing recruitment problem," said Capper. "We're in engineering and construction which is not always seen as sexy for IT people. In some of our locations we've got the likes of Google on our doorstep and people gravitate towards the big players like that.

"But actually they'd have a better role in a company like ours where we're doing lots of exciting things with digital. At any one time we have at least 30-50 open roles in IT. Filling those, especially around security, is taking months. Some take over a year."

Terry Willis, CIO at the Church of England explained that good staff are in such high demand that some are poached even after they've received a job offer.

"It's a tough market, we're looking at some permanent and contract roles, both are hard to source and I cannot see a short term change in the market. Human capital gazumping is a real thing I'm afraid!"

Capper admitted that his organisation suffers from the same problem.

"One role has been offered three times. People say they're coming and they never turn up. So it's been very difficult."

Rhona Carmichael, Regional Managing Director UK North & Ireland at recruitment firm Harvey Nash, said that the current recruitment crisis is the worst she's seen.

"In over 20 years in technology recruitment, I've never seen a market like this. It makes Y2K seem tame by comparison. There is so much demand for tech talent as clients look to transform and pursue their digital-first agendas that candidates are spoiled for choice. In such a competitive market, clients need to get everything absolutely right: the value proposition, the communications and positioning, remuneration package, interview and offer process, and flexibility around location too. This latter factor is something that's really emerging fast. Not long ago, most clients had begun to embrace a hybrid model, perhaps requiring two days a week in the office. But already, there's a growing shift towards organisations offering a remote-first model where candidates can work nearly all of the time from home. There are around 2,000 remote Java jobs currently advertised on LinkedIn for example. Candidates don't want to be dictated to. A significant proportion have a preference for fully remote working - and all are looking for a flexibility that will suit them. Some clients are developing a hub & spoke or centre of excellence model in response to this, so they can recruit talent from a wider geographical pool and have centres where staff can come in as and when needed.

"Another feature of the market is the speed at which hires are being made. I've seen cases of just 5-7 days from receiving a CV to offer accepted. Businesses that don't keep up with this are finding that candidates don't show up for an interview or second interview - because they've already accepted a post elsewhere. Companies are also having to put out more offers to secure the talent they need. Whereas in the past, a good brand might expect to have 3 out of 4 offers accepted, now a 50 per cent rate is a good result. Candidates will typically receive multiple job offers, and have to make difficult decisions so employers need to build a rapport during the interview process and find a way to make their opportunity stand out from others."

She added that the high demand for candidates is also seeing remuneration rise.

"Salaries are rising too. In some instances, London-type salaries are being offered across the UK. Often it's a case of fully remote working plus signing on bonus plus highly attractive salary. It's not just about money, though. We're finding that post-Covid, during which lots of people have done more thinking about what really matters to them, candidates are placing more importance on the purpose and ‘mission' of an employer - so being able to articulate the company vision in a compelling way is crucial too. You can't just have a two-dimensional job spec anymore.

"We're seeing technical and societal change at a higher pace than ever before. It's allowing people to live differently while working in superb tech roles. Businesses are devising new models to access a wider pool of talent. At Harvey Nash, we're incredibly busy advising and supporting clients and candidates in their search. It's a breakneck market - and a really exciting time."

However some organisations are apparently escaping the worst of the issue, with Trevor Attridge, CIO at advertising agency VMLY&R saying that he ‘relishes' the challenge.

"As the relative importance of the use of technology and data increases, it's natural to expect the inventory of talent to be more restricted than in the past. It's a challenge we relish to ensure we create roles and learning pathways for both our current and potential candidates that are compelling and therefore differentiate us in the market.

"There has also been a shift leveraging tools as platforms to acquire talent; specialist recruitment is a valuable resource, but the trend is to self-serve - does that constitute being ‘more difficult than in the past, or just a transition to a different way of working? I would suggest it's a combination of the two - inventory and changes in working practises for talent acquisition.

"The challenge is undoubtedly different than five years ago; nurturing talent, diversity and inclusivity within the organisation and ensuring the right ingredients are in place for success are more critical than ever before."