UK short 100K tech recruits this year

Market forces

If there aren't enough recruits surely they need to pay people more?

I thought the usual principle followed in practice was reduce the wages till you can't recruit any more, then cut another 30%. Obviously a different principle applies in the topsy turvy thieves' den called the City, but we'll soon be rid of them, I know we will, Vince and Dave told me so.

Not Surprising

Despite the social acceptance of gadgetry nowadays (and the obvious demand that brings), being a geek is still being a geek and we don't get the respect of those in other industries. That and the work we do is often tedious and difficult - it's definitely not for everyone.

Good news for those of us already here though.

i left the IT industry

I left the IT industry about 7 years ago. The millennium bug bubble had burst, the company I worked for treated the staff like crap and I was looking for another job.

All the jobs that were available at the time wanted Microsoft and Cisco certification along with at least two programming languages to boot... on top of that the pay they were offering was terrible. From the job descriptions I could tell it was going to be high pressure environments and considering the pay, I could get a job driving a forklift truck for just as much pay, no pressures.. 9-5 hours.... so I left IT and donned a hard hat..

Since then I have bought a hotel with my girlfriend and I am entirely responsible for the IT infrastructure including the budget!!! Happy days!!

Sounds like...

...a few more work permits dropping out of the printer.

Some big offshoring companies have no doubt been lobbying MPs, plus big business in the UK complaining that pesky UK-based IT workers are terribly expensive, making them less competitive.

Phew!

Does that mean there are some positions out there for the soon to be redundant RBS techies?

Broad Brush

Its all well and good some company saying this about IT jobs, but I don't think it applies country wide. Creep outside London or the M4 corridor and I'd like to bet its a different story.

offshore, rightshore, whatever shore is the cheapest.

Errm, I think you will find those '100K jobs' will simply be farmed out to whoever can provide the service the cheapest - usually companies like Wipro, Infosys, TCS, etc (with little or no regard for the quality of service and the final solution). An unfortunate symptom of greedy cost-cutting, short-sighted corporate management.

Yippee!

Shortage of staff = higher rates. Can't wait. It'll make a change from the "take a 10% cut or sod off" attitude that's recently prevailed.

But what price experience? So sick of listening to people who want an "expert" but are only prepared to pay for a junior.

@Alfred: where are the details?

There are people reading here who will be delighted to help meet your needs. They don't know how to find you.

Please fix.

IT staff in the UK are mostly "cheap labour"

Don't mean to insult my dear collegues, but from my very recent experience, I would say, most companies want a java, C#, C++, VB, bash and perl speaking sys admin security guru, who has at least 30years of dev experience, and all that for ideal around 14kpa. oh yeah, of course, there also has to be at least 25years of virtualisation with xen and vmware on EMC, IBM/LSI, with aditional AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, DOS, Windows, and SCO Unix knowledge.

mmmhhh did I forget anything?

Well, I work mostly as a contractor, mostly outside the country since the working environment is usually s%^&t and it is more comfortable and cheaper or same price to commute once a week to mainland europe, than to live in the M$ corridor and commute to London everyday.

Even though I do like living here, working in the UK is absolute 5h1t.

So even though I have a family, I decided to contract outside, and just live here with the family.

I get paid better, I enjoy the work more, and my family gets to travel occasionally when they tag along.

P.S.

In Germany for instance I get get nearly double the hourly rate, than over here....

Skills Shortage What Skills Shortage

A quick look round jobserve shows that IT roles are down, and many of the roles are now overseas.

A possible answer to this is the decamping from London of Financial Services companies (1st and 3rd largest hedge funds went swiss, so they can pay more tax, have a socialist mayor, and not be used as a political football)

If you are setting up a new business function, are you going to base it in the UK, with all 3 parties offering unspecified random regulation (based on latest popularity polls), or go somewhere, where the local government is actively engaging with businesses and offering a stable well regulated environment?

IME skill shortage is not the problem

Time after time I've heard "we can't recruit good developers with X, Y or Z skills" - only to find that "we" are not paying enough to attract even trainee developers without any skills.

Accept that expertise costs (and that it delivers value to justify the cost).

have you seen the costs involved?

A few years ago I was advised to get a £1000 grant to do a Cisco CCNA course. This seemed to me a good offer, but all it covered was an "introduction" entry level (i.e. it got you used to using Cisco stuff) and the proper exam was (at the time) an extra £6000. Now it's £10,000 without the entry effort and you need extra qualifications just to do it. I've also noticed that in local papers there used to be quite a lot of adverts in the jobs section stating "get a job after qualification" official partner of whoever. These have now all disappeared.

I did a website design course that cost the taxpayers (at the time in 1998 when the internet was shiny and new(ish)) £400. There was a problem with the end qualification (useful if I'd have got it) which was downgraded into a virtually worthless qualification. After entering into correspondence with the provider, I decided to stop submitting exam pieces informing them that this was the case. They agreed with this, and shortly after they went bust. I did get a certificate, which I was told that was recognised by the ESF, to which I replied "But the ESF *AREN'T* A CERTIFYING AUTHORITY!!". The phone line went dead and that was the last I heard from them. A few years later, I head that the enterprise was bogus. If this is the way forward, is it any wonder that there's shortages? Too old, too male and too expensive.

Utter BS

The report looks like BS and smells like BS! There has never been a skill shortage, only a skill gap, most of the people currently working in a profession did not do that subject in university or college, they re-trained, (I started out as an electronics engineer who repaired PDP computers, then a network engineer, then a C/Assembly programmer then a Delphi/SQL programmer, then an IT Manager)

Decision makers and Customers are exposed to so much FUD (upgrade, upgrade, upgrade!) that it is quite tricky to convince them the stuff you write wont immediately fail at the next service pack, or that open source wont immediately fry your company records and eat your babies. You people blindly towing the company/microsoft/etc line without doing your homework are mainy to blame for your own jobs being made obsolete (Windows 2000 certified engineer anyone!)

I have since started my own programming business using my "antiquated programming skills", however I am now not obliged to follow the latest IT Policy from people who have a degree in marketing or who's only idea of IT policy is to believe these shit reports. The only people I need to justify anything to now are my customer and my wife (who is my accountant!).

PS I also now live in NZ so smug x 2

SoS

Or as we in the robot controlling world put it "Same old S**t"

When I dropped out of university, the world and his dog(actually 99.9999% agencies) were crying out for Java/html people, but when my CV landed on their desk, it was 'no experience.. no job'

Bit annoying for someone who spent a fair amount of time at uni doing java and concurrent systems stuff

But as for IT worker, thats exactly what we need down here among the robots, someone to sit in front of a PC 1/2 the day designing control programs, then spend the rest of the day validating said programs on the shop floor, making sure the robot does what its supposed to without going on a murderous killing rampage (unless you want it to........)

But we cannot get the people, because the pay sucks in relation to the knowledge needed.

Oh well got to go... sounds like the skynet virus has gotten into production cell #23 again and it currently cornered the floor manager with a welding gun

IT industry as a whole

Been looking for work for 6 months now as IT support 2nd - 3rd line been in the industry for over 10 years as support ive not managed to get my head around programming but looks like im going to have to as pretty much all the jobs im seeing are for some form of a programmer.

So rubbish looking for work that pays a decent wage for experienced support staff usually get offered really low waged jobs or am turned down flat because of the time ive been in the support role being told im to expensive....

Some one must have a job for me some where or do i take up plumbing as another profession I may get wet but there is always a need of a plumber !!!!!!!

WOT, I See no Recruitment?

My employer (one of the world's largest companies), is hell bent on moving all skills to the lowest possible locations i.e. India and not China (because India's getting too expensive). They don't care about people, just numbers.

I know of one business manager who is an expert in this sort of offshoring. He would go to business managers and tell them he could reduce their costs to 25% of what they are now. When a manager turned around and said, no thank you, he would ask if they received a pay slip every month and which logo it had at the top.. They soon tumble.

There's a reson no ones going into the industr in the UK..... There's no jobs!

Show me the jobs...

I find out today if I am being made redundant from my job as IT Manager. I find out how many of my department will also be made redundant. Having spotted that the holding patern my company was taking was actually "circling the drain" I have been applying for jobs for the last year. In that time I have had no interviews. I have 20 years experiance. None of my team, who are all excellent techies have veen able to escape either. I have had a few emails from recruitment agencies offering me to be put forward for helpdesk jobs and the like which pay less than my mortgage payment... But otherwise nothing.

Show me the jobs. And show me that they are real jobs with real salaries.

Stop whinging and be creative

I was also stuck in that no experience, no job situation... you just have to be creative guys!

Get together with your mates and work out a cover story, where by your mate runs a computer business and employed you, you run a computer business employing them.

Ensure you have a clue about what you proclaim though, ie. if you were "employed" as a specialist in email, then have an idea how email works, torrent the software, install it and be able to use it proficiently. If you were "employed" as C++ then be able to program in C++

Then with your cover story set, tweak your CV and add your mate's company as a reference, say you worked there 6mths.

Do interview, you will then tick the boxes and be bright and smartly dressed.

Job done.. if you are employed in a large enough company then HR will never tie up with your CV to see that your P45 doesnt match with where you claimed to work.. your mate will obviously provide a reference on headed paper. If they do realise then you will have already been working for months with them, so if you are good they will be unlikely to sack you.

After a couple of years you will have probably moved around a bit between companies so you can drop it off your CV and blag some high adventure around India or something.

Contracting is even easier, as you will be employed through an agency and they wont care about the P45.

Technically it might be fraud but the worst you might get is a roasting by the director or something, its hardly benefit fraud.

You might as well start the old boys network early, as you currently have nothing to loose.

You're experienced when you start.

Seen today "senior developer (at least 3 years experience)".

What does that make my 20 years of real world software engineering? Maybe that's why nobody is interested in me.

It's the employers' fault.......

.........They don't treat their techhies properly, then when they leave for better jobs (the other man's grass is always greener), the employers then outsource to foreign companies because the management don't know what to do and the outsourcers are (allegedly) cheaper. No wonder no-one in the UK wants to go into technology. Been there done that - thank you very much.

let's suppose that report is even slightly true...

then the IT industry would do well to recruit from the 600,000 mums with science and engineering degrees and who are currently unable to get back into work - because of employers' inflexibility and a bigoted attitude that says if it's technical it must somehow be for males.

Smokescreen

As others have said, this report by e-skills is a smokescreen designed to persuade our government to allow UK companies to import even more migrant workers (aka cheap labour).

The e-skills UK board includes senior people from BT, IBM, Vodaphone and Logica - all of whom have been laying off hundreds of skilled UK workers in recent years whilst simultaneously increasing their intake of migrant IT workers (in some cases keeping an arms distance by outsourcing work to third parties who then do the onshoring).

BT shed 15,000 jobs in 2008 and 15,000 in 2009.

Vodaphone shed 500 UK jobs in 2009 and 500 in 2010.

Logica made 1,300 UK redundancies in 2008.

IBM continue their annual purges - currently consulting with 500 UK staff over redundancies.

None of these are actions you would expect from people putting their names to a report claiming there's a growing skills shortage.

Also on the e-skills board is A.S. Lakshminarayanan, Vice President and Head of Europe for Tata Consultancy Services, one of the biggest suppliers of Indian IT workers. No vested interests there then.