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European companies are facing an imminent skills crisis as a shortage of computer graduates and a retiring technical workforce threatens to bite IT departments by 2006. A study of almost 50 firms by Forrester predicts end-clients across the continent will see their IT skills requirements shift away from technicians, and move towards business-orientated profiles. Yet the technology researcher warned that the shift from enterprise is due to impact recruitment and education systems, making it difficult for clients to find business savvy technicians in time to meet renewed demand. Richard Peynot, senior analyst and author of the report; Europe’s looming skills deficit, says that the skills shortage in 2006 will be compounded by service providers seeking to hire staff with technical expertise. This emerges at a time when retirement rates for IT professionals have accelerated since 1997, while the number of European students graduating from IT-related courses has plummeted. “In theory the educational system should be able to rapidly create to train IT and business analysts, architects, enterprise program managers and vendors”, said Peynot. “[These are] skills that firms expect to need in greater numbers in the future; [but] in practice this will take too long to meet company demands.” The trend of offshore outsourcing will continue as companies said they intend to export “routine activities” to cheaper locations, while conversely, over half plan to recruit more project managers and business analysts. In line with the said-predictions, 46 per cent of firms expect to reduce their use of operation technicians, followed by application development and application management staff. IT decision-makers responding to Forrester believe their futures will be more successful if they replaced technical experts with project managers, who alongside enterprise architects and business analysts are the least likely to be laid off. However, increasing certain areas of technical expertise was a priority for 35 per cent of companies eyeing emerging technologies like grid computing and RFID, and specific competencies on commercial applications, especially ERP and BI. Furthermore, while application development was the priority area for staff reduction, there was already an evolving “shift from pure coding to greater parameterization of commercial software, and Web developers familiar with C++, Java, PHP or Python are replacing COBOL programmers.” One of the key solutions in the report to the ‘looming skills crisis’ was education, and some Universities are beginning to realise companies will no longer hire experts who can only code, but favour “those who can design and manage IT for vertical business disciplines.” One European University said it was exploring a project to help improve the performance of Connecting for Health, the UK Government’s £6bn programme to computerise the NHS. “We may look at computing as applied to different job markets,” said the unnamed institution. “The idea wouldn’t be to develop the NHS IT system but rather to offer courses that would upscale its IT.” But Forrester said enthusiasm for IT from technical universities and engineering schools in Europe has only “barely begun to transform” its courses, with many accused of failing to “generate a respectable level of enthusiasm for computer sciences among young people.” French Universities offering masters degrees appeared to be the exception, with courses designed either to incorporate business with technology or to fuse a local business college with the IT curriculum. Despite this, 90 per cent of firms polled complained about missing disciplines in new IT candidates and condemned a lack of depth of content from IT educators, with ‘business analysis’ emerging as the most neglected yet sought-after area. Almost as a direct result, businesses across Europe plan to significantly accelerate spend on IT training between 2005 and 2007, with over 40 per cent of firms vowing to offer at least one training session to more than half its workforce during the year of the projected skills deficit. Meanwhile, Forrester warned against blanket offshoring of “routine positions” by saying that security, enterprise and technical architecture, innovative solutions and new technologies remain critical challenges. Decisions over what jobs to offshore should be taken internally by people with high skill levels — positions that the researcher said are not “offshorable.” “These high-level positions require experience and a relevant background,” said Peynot. “The educational system may take some time to align its programs with demand — so companies should seriously evaluate the possibility of training adults either internally or through partnerships with universities.” Jul 22, 2005 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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