James Button

London

IT Consultant

Government actions preclude 'training' the required staff in the UK, either in schools, or industry.
Stated policy may be that they are needed, and the government will help organisations train staff, but their actions make it unlikely that UK institutions will put the long term effort into training staff, or retaining skilled and experienced staff, and the pay structure is still that non-technical 'managers' get paid more than the staff thhey are to manage.

So, do you advise students in school/college to become a 'manager', who can, with a reasonable skills set, expect 40 years employment.
Or advise them to become an IT technician, spending - say 4 years obtaining technical skills looking towards 20 years employment, (Too old to be employed in IT at 40) renewing/replacing their core skills (Software and project management philosophy) at least every 3 years, while getting less pay than a 'manager'