Arunn Ramadoss, Micro Focus

Newbury, UK

Head, Connections Program

It’s encouraging to see organisations addressing the growing IT skills gap in this country, but much more needs to be done if we are to tackle this problem once and for all; and on a much larger and more coordinated scale. Businesses, central government and academia must work together to develop and implement sustainable and scalable solutions to reduce the skills gap.

It’s worth remembering that the vast majority of large UK companies continue to rely on core systems built over many decades. These systems have proven business value. COBOL applications for example process 200 times as many transactions per day than searches on Google, yet the experience and skills to understand, maintain and develop these systems are declining steadily.

Only by universities and industry working together will established skills and experience, such as COBOL, be passed onto future generations, finally closing the skills gap and ensuring the future of UK organisations.