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The technical skills gap is widening. As ICT graduate numbers fail to meet demand, companies must look to re-skill and certify business staff.
ICT
job numbers in Europe have been growing at a tremendous pace since the start of
the millennium, now totalling 7.7 million and accounting for 3.5% of the
continent’s total workforce. But demand for ICT workers is growing even faster
and, if current trends continue, there are likely to be 756,000 unfilled
vacancies in Europe by 2020.
These
figures are revealed in a working
paper by research and consultancy firm Empirica, using data from the Labour
Force Surveys (LFS) of the EU-28 Member States and Empirica online job posting
data.
The
research shows that the number of ICT jobs grew on average:
- 3%
per year between 2000 and 2010.
- 2%
per year between 2011 and 2014.
- 72,000
excess open ICT vacancies in Europe estimated today and this number is
continuing to grow.
The
most in-demand candidates currently are:
- Core
ICT practitioners, such as software and application developers.
- Web
and multimedia experts.
- Database
designers and administrators.
- There continues to be high demand for management and plan/design staff,
even though 459,000 such jobs have already been added in Europe in only three
years – an average annual growth rate of 8%.
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Technical
skills shortage creates strain on Europe’s economy.
The
widening skills gap is likely to have serious implications, not only for European
IT innovation, but also for Europe’s overall economic growth. Skilled ICT
practitioners are needed in almost all industries of the economy, and indeed the
majority (52%) of Europe’s current ICT employees do not work in the ICT sector.
With hundreds of thousands of roles left unfilled, the European economy is
likely to suffer as projects are not realised, tenders not submitted,
innovations not made,
ICT
graduate supply far from meeting demand.
One
of the major problems facing Europe is its lack of ICT graduates. Instead of increasing
with demand, the numbers of ICT graduates have actually been in decline since
2006, when they peaked at 129,000. The most dramatic decrease has been in the
UK, where the number of ICT graduates today is down to just 63% of the number
it used to be in 2003. And yet qualifications are still highly sought after in
the European job market. The share of computer science graduates in ICT
recruitment has increased significantly over the last 10 years, and so too has
the share of graduates from other disciplines – such as mathematics,
engineering, and social sciences – who possess the skills and qualifications needed
to fill ICT positions that would otherwise remain vacant.
Beyond
filling ICT roles: why companies must reskill and certify their cross-functional staff in order to compete.
As
the struggle for ICT talent intensifies in Europe, companies are increasingly looking
to reskill their existing business employees to take on more ICT functions and
job roles. But while ICT has traditionally been a field in which outsiders – in
terms of formal education or career trajectory – play a crucial role, today’s
businesses are paying increasing attention to formal ICT qualifications and
industry certification. Indeed, recent research (e-skills QUALITY
study: www.eskills-quality.eu)
shows that certification has become crucial for ICT practitioners across all
backgrounds. We can safely assume, then, that industry certification
will become especially important in adapting traditionally non-ICT employees to
meet demanding technical staffing needs.
But
far from being a last-ditch attempt by companies to fill ageing ICT
requisitions, cross-skilling employees from the business side should instead be
seen as a strategic masterstroke. The reason has to do with innovation. Reports
show that companies generally tend to leave innovation projects to the IT
department. This approach is a mistake on two counts.
Firstly,
innovation requires an understanding of both business and ICT – and IT
employees frequently suffer from a lack of knowledge of business operations. Secondly,
successful innovation is actually more likely to come from the business side than
from IT. The Empirica research shows that the relation between non-IT staff and
IT staff involved in driving IT based innovation is 60/40 – both in terms of
initiation and implementation. And this, despite many business employees lacking
in the IT knowledge needed to effectively address innovation. Therefore, companies
that boost the technical skills and qualifications of their business staff will
not only be able to fill critical ICT roles faster, but will also exponentially
increase their ability to innovate, and by consequence, their competitiveness.
Certified
– ICT as a rewarding and recession-proof career.
It
is also notable that between 2008 and 2010, when the crisis hit other labour
markets hard, ICT employment actually increased – by on average 2.65% per year.
Employees from all backgrounds can significantly boost career prospects with
ICT training and certification. Not only are salaries likely to rise considerably
as the skills gap increases, but a career in ICT is among the safest for surviving
current European austerity, and any future recession.
Whether
you are a business leader or an individual contributor, working in IT or
non-IT, technology training and certification must be on your list of
priorities. Your career, your business, and Europe’s future may
depend on it.
Find
out more about Oracle’s training and certification programs here.
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