Technology skills

Chris Weedall, IT manager at the Forum of Private Business, said: "The study has too vague a focus and isn't necessarily a true reflection of the situation on the ground. 

"Anecdotal evidence suggests that the skills are out there but perhaps they aren't being best-used. There are a lot of workers in the UK that may have extensive skills with IT yet don't necessarily have 'official' accreditation, which incidentally can be prohibitively expensive for SMEs to obtain.

"There are a number of ways that the situation can be improved for SMEs. The concept of the 'office champion', whereby one particular member of staff is extensively trained on, for instance, Microsoft Office and is then able to transfer these skills to the members of their team, is a route that many SMEs could identify with and easily implement and could make inroads into the perceived 'skills gap' that the study identifies.

"The outsourcing of 'simple work' may in itself be part of the problem.  If business is keen to outsource the more simple aspects of its IT function where does this leave those workers in the UK that are trying to gain experience and skills? 

"For many the first steps on the road to IT competence take place at a basic level, yet if all such work is removed from the business's function this doesn't augur well for producing competent staff in the future who are familiar with the 'nuts and bolts' of IT function to complement any other skills they may possess."

Stakeholder Response: Institute of Education

David Guile, lecturer in higher education at the Institute of Education, said: Is the problem being over-emphasised and misjudged, and are we therefore failing to identify strategies that business and education can adopt to alleviate the situation?

"Shortages in IT skills are reported in two areas: a specific shortfall of suitably qualified graduates, and a lack of project management skills.

"The first can be misleading because people tend to conflate overall skill shortages with a demand for a specific type of skill or form of knowledge. Hence, a partial shortfall is presented as evidence of a total shortfall.

"The reason for the shortage of project management skills is twofold: many university courses do not include project management in their IT degrees; and many employers who offer undergraduates work experience are reluctant to give them project management experience in case it affects their 'bottom line'.

"Both business and education must re-engage in constructive dialogue about how to: rectify the specific areas of knowledge or skill that are missing from degree programmes; re-vamp existing work experience programmes and secure new, suitably stretching offers of work experience from the business community to offer undergraduates; enhance existing science/technology schemes for 14 to 19-year-olds to attract more women into the male-dominated world of IT; sequence initial workplace assignments to escalate newly qualified graduates from 'novice to expert project managers' and enhance the longstanding UK tradition of many UK companies of converting generalist graduates into IT graduates."

Dr Martin Oliver, senior lecturer in ICT at the Institute of Education, added: "Employers are presented as having little responsibility for creating or resolving this situation. Calling for governmental support or educational initiatives can only be part of the solution; changes in working practice are also required.

"There will always be delays between educational initiatives and changes in the workforce. A student choosing an IT-related degree at university is gambling on future employment opportunities; it is hardly surprising that the turbulent recent history of the industry means that fewer students are willing to take this gamble.

"It is inevitable that employees' skills will require updating as technology changes. Yet the implicit message seems to be that the employees and educators need to resolve this.

"Recent years have seen the growth of part-time e-learning courses, which employees are expected to take in their own time. The alternative is for employers to invest in ongoing processes of learning and development, in which knowledge is developed and shared during work time within the organisation rather than being seen as a problem for someone else to solve.