Top 10 skills stories of the year

Tech skills issues were never far from the headlines in 2007. Age-old debates turning up the volume this year include the IT skills shortage and the threat it poses to the UK's future economy; the ongoing lack of female techies; how technology is impacting work/life balance; ageist recruitment attitudes; and more.

There were warnings that the future work life must be flexible if a wired up, web 2.0 generation is to be wooed to the workplace. And a national Work From Home day gave silicon.com the opportunity to delve a little deeper into the reality of flexible working - as every member of the team was banished from the office for the day but tasked with ensuring business as usual.

As the year progressed, the Blair years took on a Brown hue and government placed new emphasis on skills: replacing the Department of Trade and Industry with a new Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills - aiming to turn Blighty into 'one of the best locations for science, research and innovation'.

The need for the UK to upskill in order to compete in a "24-hour, global economy" was a recurring message from government. The folk in Whitehall also launched a fast-track graduate scheme to unearth the next generation of IT leaders - to help deliver large scale IT-enabled business change.

Meanwhile silicon.com's ninth Skills Survey took the annual temperature of the tech world - sketching a picture of how IT salaries are faring, which sector is being worst hit by staff shortages and which skills are in keenest demand. Offshoring's impact was also examined, with evidence to show increasing ambivalence among UK techies about whether it is a threat to their jobs - perhaps a sign of growing acceptance of the challenges of working in an increasingly global economy.

Top 10 skills stories of the year:

1. Are women 'too smart' for IT?
With a reminder that just 16 per cent of the tech workforce is female, the question of why women are abandoning IT careers got silicon.com's readership fired up back in the first days of 2007. With explanations ranging from the 'macho' culture and the need to put up with "constant harassment and put-downs", to the notion that women are just too smart to get into IT in the first place, this is one debate that surely has years more mileage in it.

2. The great working from home experiment
The UK's second annual work from home (WFH) day saw silicon.com banish the entire editorial team from the office to see if WFH, well, works in practice. Each employee performed their duties from desks, cafés and kitchen tables, reporting on the benefits and frustrations of doing a job outside the comfy confines of the office. Even editor Steve Ranger's cat Jack got in on the action. See photos and read the account of how the day progressed.

3. Skills Survey 2007: Industry falling out of love with IT grads
The quality of computer science graduates is falling, according to results from this year's silicon.com Skills Survey. But is that a fault of the teaching or are employers expecting too much from grads? Voices from various side of the debate have their say here. Read more results from the survey:

• Staffing crisis deepens
  
• Banks hardest hit by staff crisis
  
• Big earners trending upwards
  
• CIOs getting less cash?
  
• Offshoring still a hot potato

4. Video: How to stop your best staff leaving
This year silicon.com named the top 50 CIOs, then gathered many of these leaders in a room and asked them to divulge their staff retention secrets on camera. Advice straight from the horse's mouth includes a warning about the dangers of micromanaging people. Essential viewing.

5. BlackBerrys and PDAs bad for work/life balance
The CrackBerry strikes again! silicon.com's CIO Jury weighed in with its take on whether the business gizmo makes life heaven or hell. The verdict - rather unsurprisingly - is that it's good for productivity but often bad for your personal life. As one Jury member commented of his BlackBerry: "I'm not sure about work/life balance but my wife has a very strong opinion on that subject since I got it."

6. How to survive the first 100 days as CIO
This year silicon.com held its fifth annual CIO Forum, gathering top IT leaders to debate issues around talent management and how to get the best out of staff. For those new to a CIO role, this article has some solid advice on approaching the first three months in the job.

7. Web 2.0 techies sacrifice pay for shares
Dreams of dot-com glory... There may have been rumbles of economic discontent but nothing could dampen the hopes of dot-com start-up workers who, gripped by the promise of web 2.0-fuelled wealth, were apparently happy to forego up to a third of their salary for shares. As they say, hope springs eternal.

8. "Rife" ageism causing IT skills crisis?
Another issue that got silicon.com readers talking this year was the skills shortage. There would be less of a recruitment crisis, they argued, if employers weren't so prejudiced against the over 40s. One reader blamed ageist recruitment attitudes on "HR departments being staffed by 20-somethings to whom anyone over 40 is old and beyond 50 is possibly speaking from a coffin or a home for the elderly whilst imbibing a Horlicks".

9. Five skills you need to be CIO
What does it take to cut it as a CIO in today's business world? silicon.com rounds up five skills that IT chiefs should have sewn into their socks if they want to succeed in today's workplace.

10. Peter Cochrane's Blog: Know-nothing managers
silicon.com's ever popular - and often controversial - columnist, Peter Cochrane, rails against the rise of experience-less managers, warning: "These days people who have zip technical training or experience are managing some of the biggest IT projects on the planet." Cochrane view: being a successful manager is all about serving your time at the coal face so understanding of your staff is ingrained. How else can you expect to add value to the business?