See also:
CIO Profile: OU's David Matthewman
The latest quarterly figures from e-skills UK (the Sector Skills Council for our industry) show the number of advertised vacancies for IT staff rising for the sixth quarter in a row to reach 105,000.
At the same time the count of IT people in or out of work seeking a new job declined to a new low of 95,000.
That shortage of 10,000 people is against a backdrop of employment of IT staff across all sectors reaching a new record total of 1,093,000.
These numbers are supported in my own experience by much anecdotal or informal feedback from CIOs across sectors.
Even in today’s business climate, there is often a need to recruit IT people with specific high-demand skills (SAP, Oracle, Google analytics, SharePoint and several others), and this remains a challenge.
However for the CIO facing delays and bottlenecks caused by skills shortages, recruitment is not the only option: there is also the training or reskilling of existing personnel in the newer technologies required.
But sadly, according to the latest available statistics, when it comes to staff training, the UK IT sector is failing to sparkle.
Figures published by e-skills UK show that only 23 per cent of UK IT staff had received job-related education or training in the previous quarter, significantly lower than the 27 per cent reported for the UK workforce as a whole.
What makes these numbers especially disappointing is that today, learning new skills is easier and more cost-effective to organise and achieve than ever before.
That's because of one important but often-overlooked factor, the phenomenal development in recent years of online learning.
Development not simply in the number and variety of courses available, but in techniques and effectiveness.
No longer does online learning mean simply a few slides piped down the wire, as perhaps was the case five years ago.
Interaction is now a key feature, so that students can delve for more detail on specific areas of content, get instant help if stuck, question their instructor and discuss ideas and solutions with their fellow students, who might be anywhere in the UK or even around the world.
Registration is free, and gives you full access to our extensive white paper library, case studies & analysis, downloads & speciality areas, and more.
Such interaction can be more effective than face-to-face learning, given that a lot of bright IT people are happier to express views and questions online than to pipe up in a classroom.
Experience in my company shows that today's Facebook generation responds well to online learning opportunities.
Indeed we have seen huge expansion of take-up (of the order of 30 per cent plus per annum) in recent years, either by managers nominating their staff for courses or people applying on their own initiative and with their manager's support.
All of which goes to prove the sheer effectiveness of online learning.
Once you also factor in the sheer cost effectiveness of this
David McKay | Published: 16:24 GMT, 01 February 2012
My anecdotal evidence agrees with yours, it is so dispiriting to find that training is still the first budget cut when times are hard. Despite a vast accumulation of research that shows that staff development and training has a hugely positive RoI, IT managers continue to cut - it is simply not rational. For such a "technical" discipline, why should that be?