Developing and Retaining Skills in IT

Download the Output Report from this Corporate IT Forum workshop.

With the appetite for outsourcing becoming constant and a lack of quality graduates available, organisations are experiencing an increasing shortage of talent, particularly in the specific areas of business analysis, architecture and security.

The findings of the Corporate IT Forum's June 2011 Reality Checker highlighted that the availability of IT skills has long been an issue but it has been made worse by outsourcing and offshoring.

This report has been compiled from experience shared during the workshop, which was attended by 11 senior IT professionals representing 9 organisations covering a wide range of industries, including aerospace, airlines, central and council government, financial services and asset management, healthcare and recruitment.

Demographic studies show that there seems to be a growing reluctance of young people to work in the industry, and the net result is that insufficient home-grown IT talent is entering businesses. The long term trends seem to suggest that a smaller graduate talent pool will be available for organisations. At the same time, those organisations are seeing a welcome influx to IT from people with business experience and, importantly, the necessary communications skills that some IT people still lack.