How can we attract more students into IT?
The UK economy depends on the vitality of the IT professional workforce. Yet fewer and fewer young people are studying technology or choosing a career in IT. We must take action urgently to turn this tide.
In today’s global, knowledge-driven economy, technology has become critical to competitive advantage and business success in every sector. A recent European Commission report tells us that technology is now driving 50 per cent of the EU’s growth (i2010 - Annual Information Society Report 2007, 30 March 2007, European Commission). In the UK, the IT industry is growing at five to eight times the national average and around 150,000 entrants to the IT workforce are required each year
However, every year fewer young people choose to study technology-related subjects at school and university, and every year fewer of these technology graduates choose to embark on a career in IT.
Between 2001 and 2006 there was a drop of 43 per cent in the number of students taking A-levels in computing (from 10,913 in 2001 to 6,233 in 2006). The uptake of IT-related degrees almost halved between 2001 and 2005 (from 27,000 in 2001 to 14,700 in 2005); with a mere 15 per cent of applications coming from women. Of the UK’s IT graduates, only around three in 10 choose to enter IT occupations upon graduation.
There is a mismatch with the needs of the economy that urgently needs to be addressed.
To begin with, we need to consider what appears to be driving these downward trends. There is a growing chasm between technology-related education at school and university and what employers actually need. At school level, most IT courses focus on IT user skills, with little of relevance to today’s IT careers. We need courses that bring out the excitement and relevance of IT to modern-day lives and that transform the attitudes of young people, particularly women, towards careers in IT.
Furthermore, at university level, many IT courses focus on computer science, often with little business content. There is an urgent need for more university-level courses to combine IT and business, with creative and stimulating programmes of study that enable students to develop the full range of skills required for a modern career in IT.
Taking action works. The Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degrees, developed by e-skills UK through a new partnership between employers and higher education, will be running at 13 UK universities by the end of this year. These innovative degrees give equal weighting to technical, business, project management and personal skills – a mix seen by employers as providing the best foundation for a successful career in IT. Application numbers are high, and include an encouraging number of young women. In addition, increasing numbers of employers want to be closely involved with the degrees through lectures, projects and work placements.
This is just one example. We would like to encourage many more employers and universities will collaborate to reform IT degrees into challenging business-oriented, people-focused courses that attract the most capable candidates and prepare them well for an exciting modern career in IT.
Hi I really like this article and discussion. I am young, 20-years old, and committed to IT/computing for my better future. What I have seen so far with the young generation where they tend not to get on with the courses in IT, is because the major factor is outsourcing of IT back room work to the Far East. This is everyone's initial thought and another main reason is that the young generation do not want to match the work ethic of people coming from India and studying here, in terms of spending more time in developing software/systems or studying new computer language but they go to Myspace and Hi5 and that's what they call IT culture. the young generation in the UK that I have come across are very lazy and never get on with the latest technology in terms of getting more into how that works and how you can change those codes with better solutions.
This is my personal analysis of the younger generation of GB as I am also young.
I hope this would help you to make such decisions to get more possible solutions to attract more students in IT.
Posted by: Ankit Upadhyay | Wednesday, 11 April 2007 at 02:32 AM
Hello,
I have noticed a lot of fuss being made about the IT skills shortage across the UK. Not enough graduates this, not enough degrees that. Can I just point out that university is not the only route into an IT career. Why don't employers realise that there are young IT workers that have chosen a different route. I took the vocational route and now have various relevant IT qualifications in the form of NVQ level 2 and 3 and BTEC certification. But more than that, probably most importantly I have 3 years experience. I am only 20-years old and over the last three years I have gained more knowledge of networking and support than many of my friends have from university and I didn't have to get into as much to debt to do it. I am currently preparing to go on an MCSE 2003 course which I have paid for the majority of this with my own money because I am willing to broaden my horizons. But I know that for the higher paid IT jobs they will look for a graduate, probably a graduate in Art, over me with my years of experience, obvious determination, relevant qualifications and good attitude.
So perhaps the skills shortage is down to employers ignorance, in presuming that the only skills learnt in this country are gained through university and binge drinking. Consider the hundreds of IT technicians in the country, probably thousands, who are just waiting for that job in industry that will give them a career. Except nobody has thought that they may present the obvious answer to the supposed problem.
Sorry didn't mean to rant but it's very frustrating.
Posted by: Jason | Thursday, 12 April 2007 at 11:31 AM
As mentioned above, in order to get a job in IT one is effectively competing against people from India and China. There is a huge drive to offshore IT projects if possible. People are reading the writing on the wall which says that IT jobs will be hard to come by in a few years. The few IT jobs that do exist will have low salaries as IT skills are increasingly being seen as a commodity.
A degree in IT management will not help unless people gain strong technical skills. In my experience, technical teams have absolutely no respect for managers without technical skills because they don't understand the issues. Successful teams have always had managers who have a technical background.
The BCS (as usual) and others seem to have their head stuck up their own backsides wondering why no one wants to study IT, when the answers are obvious to everyone else.
Posted by: Daniel | Sunday, 15 April 2007 at 03:11 AM
Why waste your time doing an IT degree when the jobs are all going to India and China?
My last manager reminded me that he could find someone with my qualifications and experience in India for 20% of the cost. He said that he didn't mean to sound rude (even though he did), he just wanted to make sure I realized the reality of the situation.
A few months after that, my contract ended and an entire boatload of Indian devs were brought in. These guys were working well below the market rate.
Shortly thereafter I decided that I had to get out of IT FAST. You have absolutely no protection against your job being outsourced. Being better than your Indian rivals will not help you either since employers will often settle for 'good enough' rather than great IF 'good enough' is available at 1/5th the price.
Posted by: Billy | Wednesday, 18 April 2007 at 12:36 PM
how very depressing! i am a mature (26)IT student - and there appear to be loads of various IT jobs out there. i am doing software development, but now i am getting worried about my employability when i graduate next year.
Posted by: Lyn | Tuesday, 01 May 2007 at 12:37 PM
The ITMB is not the only intitative within Universities aimed at equipping computing students with Business skills. Here at the University of Kent we have been running for the past 3 years a very successful IT Clinic. This provides small/micro enterprises with accessible IT support. In addition Students get a practical grounding in how to be an IT Consultant and provide full on customer service whilst earning academic credit. In fact one of our KITC students received a prize in 2006 as in the Computing Awards under student project of the year.
Posted by: David Soud | Thursday, 12 July 2007 at 09:42 AM
I don't think anyone should have a problem finding a job in the IT industries
Posted by: Tony Starks | Saturday, 24 May 2008 at 10:26 AM