IT industry backs skills boost plan

The government today launched a scheme to close what it calls a productivity gap in IT skills between France, Germany and the US.

Skills Minister Phil Hope announced a three-year initiative called the Sector Skills Agreement for IT (SSA for IT). Employer organisation e-skills UK, which comprises companies such as British Airways, Cisco Systems and Ford, is behind the project, which will mean firms give work placements, business advice and training support to people involved in the scheme.

In a press statement, Education and Skills Secretary Ruth Kelly MP said: "A long-term strategy to ensure broader, deeper and ever-evolving IT skills across all sectors of the economy is fundamental to our productivity and competitiveness. The SSA for IT sets out the action plan, developed with employers, training providers and government which will provide business with the IT skills needed to make a difference to our prosperity."

e-skills said it wants to make IT careers more attractive and to give 750,000 people new skills. It will start by recruiting 1,000 students for IT-focused degree courses at universities in Greenwich, Northumbria and Reading.

The organisation added that just one in five IT professionals is a woman - something it plans to change with the launch of Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4G), a scheme which aims to get girls between the ages of 10 and 14 more interested in computer technology. Starting in September the clubs will roll out in 3,600 schools and should reach 150,000 girls.

Research from e-skills found a quarter of UK businesses lack employees with the IT skills to do their jobs. One-third of firms with vacancies for IT staff also find them hard to fill, and 76 per cent said they had delayed selling new products and services because of the shortage. It said the UK lags behind France and Germany with intermediate skills and the US with graduate skills.

While the UK plans to make IT skills more widespread among the workforce, the trend toward offshoring continues. Last year, analyst Gartner predicted that a quarter of western IT jobs would move offshore by 2010. Evaluserve said 250,000 jobs such as programming would leave the country in the same period, leaving management-focused jobs for the UK.

Plus: Read silicon.com's leader on the state of IT skills in the UK.