Naked CIO: Bring down IT salaries

Sky-high salaries are giving the IT department a bad time. The Naked CIO outlines a plan for how to revitalise the workforce - and save IT's reputation.

Over the last couple of months as budgets have tightened and questions of efficiency have been raised throughout the business world, I've wondered if the last decade of rising IT salaries is hurting not only businesses but also the ability to develop a sustained IT culture within organisations.

Offshoring and outsourcing remain one of the primary alternatives to high IT staffing costs in the UK. Although I am not a fan of these tactics, the emergence of low cost labour markets suggests staff cost is a real issue - and the growth of these markets suggests it is systemic.

The cost of employing labour cannot be removed from the cost of training and developing emerging IT skills. Has the great growth and success of IT created an overpriced model that cannot work in challenging economic times? How do we as leaders within our industry work to stabilise wages and salaries in order to bring the value or perceived value back into our function?

In the IT department the cost of employing critical staff functions and effective specialties such as project management and software development is much higher than in other departments. This is largely because the shortage of technical skills has increased IT salaries at rates other aspects of the business cannot match.

Yet the staff shortages in key technical areas means finding competent employees remains as or more challenging than it ever was.

This has created a climate where IT has become the primary target of organisations looking to tighten their belts. I wonder if we are not partially responsible for letting it happen. The only way to solve this is to move towards an all-out assault on the very things that threaten our existence and make us the targets in the eyes of our businesses.

We need to stimulate education and training at a reasonable price and encourage young and old people alike to get the technical and business skills necessary to create a viable and competitive IT work force. Through creating opportunities and ensuring we have a sufficient labour pool to draw from, we will be able to create a fair free market for IT specialists at competitive market-based rates. It is simple supply and demand.

Companies need to invest more in internships for students and sponsor university programmes to get the brains of tomorrow engaged today. The industry and the educational system also need to start engaging children at a younger age to encourage them to pursue IT as a career. This means driving more information and knowledge at the pre-uni level.

We also need to expose the breadth of opportunities in IT beyond the purely technical and educate the country that you do not need to be a geek in order to prosper within the IT sector. Very few people outside the industry realise the value of the softer IT skills such as business analysis, project management, contract negotiation and compliance.

There is much work to be done if we are to create a competitive and sustainable workforce that will be competitive with all the alternatives. To expect others to lead this charge is as naive as the ignorance we have demonstrated in not dealing with the impending staffing storm so far.