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Foreign IT contractors set for UK projects

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    Foreign IT contractors set for UK projects

    From the main page. So where shall I sign, then? Anybody got a pen?
    ------------------------------------------------------------

    Foreign IT contractors set for UK projects


    The UK’s most visible technology projects will resort to recruiting foreign IT contractors to urgently develop systems for the NHS, the Olympic Games and national ID cards.

    Such is the verdict from the Institute for Management of Information Systems, which yesterday told Contractor UK that the IT jobs market will terminally decline if it depends on overseas talent.

    Only immediate action from state and employers to develop the necessary project management skills can the UK avert a “catastrophic hole” in its skills base, said Institute advisor Phil Virgo.

    “We face a crunch in 2008/9 when an awful lot of projects, including London 2012, ID cards and the NHS come together. At that point, if we are not capable of staffing those projects we will import project managers and then there will be no recovery at all thereafter.

    “There are a lot of Brits in senior manager and project posts around the world and very few of them ever return to the UK. Essentially, we have staffed up the rest of the world and because we have run down our skills base, we haven’t got the right skills at the moment.

    “Unless we rebuild that base, then the Olympics and the rest [of major IT projects] will actually be done by foreign contractors, coming to the UK to project manage and at that point, there will be nothing left indigenous,” he said.

    The problem for UK clients is compounded because new-style degree courses in information systems and technology will not release their first graduates until summer 2008.

    The Institute’s 2006 Skills Review warned, “Those [employers] who do not start planning re-skilling and retention programmes for existing staff this spring will therefore face growing problems from spring 2008 onwards.”

    Unless ICT bodies, employers and government heed the warnings, the Institute predicts the UK will mimic Greece when it hosts the world’s most high-profile IT project in 2012.

    “As with the Athens Games the Olympic programmes will then be handled by contractors drafted in from around the world while non-Olympic programmes will fall by the wayside, except where global rates are on offer. The reputations of those who did not plan ahead are unlikely to survive.”

    Reflecting on the 2006 Skills Review, Mr Virgo said pay for project managers in the UK, regardless of contract or permanent, had fared “very nicely” over the last 12 months.

    Average pay climbed 6.8 per cent last year, but in the public sector, senior project managers saw their worth rise well over double the national average.

    Significantly less was offered to project managers working in London or for large media companies, where salaries for some senior IT workers fell by over 25 per cent.

    Even more of a revelation was the finding that rates and salaries for ICT jobs across the UK that can be moved offshore are now “stagnant or falling.”

    Growth in the public sector is over and further spending cuts are set to bite the budgets of recruiting companies, the Institute said.

    The tighter conditions are already affecting the lucrative jobs that are perceived as safer from offshore outsourcing, including some roles of project management.

    “Project management jobs are not going overseas, but there is a great raft of jobs being exported. Rates for project management skills are doing very nicely, but rates for those project skills that could be contracted out to the rest of the world, in other words skills that could be outsourced, have not kept pace with inflation since 2000, and in real terms are falling.”

    Tax incentives to boost employee training, including individually funded course costs to be offset against income tax should be introduced, IMIS recommended.

    Employees in ICT training should also be exempt from income tax and national insurance, while industry bodies should update their skills and objectives.
    I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.

    #2
    Nss

    Well its nice they are keeping up at the back!
    Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

    Comment


      #3
      Geez, they seem quite happy to employ asian programmers from abroad. Seems odd that so many Brit-Asian programmers can't seem to get work here. Must be a caste thing.
      McCoy: "Medical men are trained in logic."
      Spock: "Trained? Judging from you, I would have guessed it was trial and error."

      Comment


        #4
        The government say that we need to let in foreign contractors (from TCS etc) because there is a skills shortage. But I know people who have found it hard to get jobs. The current client gets far too many CVs and they are good too. So where's this skills shortage? I think what they really mean is that UK companies cannot get UK workers at Indian rates. Doh.

        Fungus, a UK born and bred mycelium.

        Comment


          #5
          Remember this Government hates caveats.

          As we know Government & industry alike have been claiming for years there is a skills shortage. But they deliberately miss out that essential little caveat ...
          "at wages more in line with the minimum wage".

          We all know there are tens of thousands of indigenous highly skilled people in the UK who are economically inactive or economically under employed. (not just in IT).

          Many are deemed over qualified (code for "they know too much more than me") and others because they're deemed too old at a mere 40. Employers preferring "younger candidates who don't realise their worth and can be exploited so much easier".

          Not my words, the words of the former editor of the Sun on Panorama last week.

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