CompTIA aims to bridge skills gap with new site

Portal acts as one-stop shop for youngsters looking for a career in IT

CompTIA is hoping to lure more people into the IT industry with the help of a new portal which will match up young techies with jobs the industry is desperate to fill.

The Skillsboost website is aimed at pupils and their parents and teachers, providing vendor-neutral careers advice and resources.

CompTIA hopes the website will "dramatically boost" the number of young people taking on a career in technology.

The site will offer info on local IT jobs as well as provide data on the industry sectors that currently suffer from the biggest skills gap.

"[This] enables schools and colleges to direct teaching resources towards giving pupils the most in-demand skills, dramatically boosting their employment prospects," CompTIA claims.

It added that 43 per cent of UK businesses are experiencing a severe IT skills shortage.

The issue is a perennial one in the channel. Last year, Microsoft UK said the cloud skills gap was one of its partners' most pressing concerns and EMC launched a scheme to help ex-servicemen into the industry to bridge the gap and provide service leavers with long-term employment.

Graham Hunter, vice president for skills certifications at CompTIA, said: "We created Skillsboost to give aspiring young IT professionals a chance to learn about the huge variety of vocational paths into an IT career and help school and college leavers work out how to best increase and prove their skills to find jobs in the industry.

"Critically, as a vendor-neutral IT careers site, this will provide neutral careers, skills and apprenticeships information that could help young people develop their skills in any technology platform and find out about the full range of employment and training opportunities across every industry sector."