We’ve talked before about skills shortages in the construction, engineering and transport and logistics sectors. The other area where demand is currently outstripping supply is IT. Skilled IT professional such as coders, programmers and developers are all in short supply.
This is great news for IT professionals who will find career opportunities are particularly good at the moment and for those with skills such as .Net, Java and SQL their earning potential is almost certainly on the rise.
Demand for IT contractors is expected to continue to grow and this could lead to problems for UK businesses. The UK market runs the risk of being less competitive in what is an increasingly global market.
The number of young people studying IT at school and at university has decreased and hasn’t been keeping pace with the growing demand so this is a problem which isn’t likely to be resolved in the short term. There are various initiatives aimed at encouraging young people in the UK to study IT and technology subjects and but it will take time for this to have any impact on the availability of relevant skills.
In the shorter term it is likely that companies in the UK will try and plug their gaps with contractors and may be forced actively to recruit from overseas. An increase in businesses off shoring their IT functions is also something we can expect to see.
