Government inquiry asks how to close tech skills gap

Inquiry comes after 'repeated evidence' the industry is facing major shortages in areas including big data

The debate about how to plug the IT skills gap has been reignited after the government launched an inquiry into how to address the STEM skills shortage.

The government claims the lack of talent in the area comes amid repeated evidence that the industry is facing a shortage of skills in "key growth sectors such as big data".

The Science and Technology Committee inquiry is gathering information from organisations about which digital skills are missing and how the organisations have filled those roles. It comes after the committee released a Digital Skills Crisis report in June 2016, which found that the UK will need 745,000 more workers with digital skills by 2017.

According to CompTIA - at its ChannelCon 2016 in August - there looks set to be a 15 per cent skills deficit in the next eight years, caused in the main by more and more IT workers retiring.

But the skills gap is an ongoing problem which, according to the Digital Skills Crisis report, affects the commercial operations of 93 per cent of technology companies in the UK.

Some channel players believe the current shortage originated from the 2008 financial crisis and the UK recession that followed. Shaun Lynn, CEO of Agilitas, said that alongside those economic challenges, the commoditisation of hardware has had a big role to play in the skills shortage.

"I think there are a few reasons for the skills gap. The economic challenges that have existed since the financial crisis and the last recession, coupled with some of the commoditisation of hardware, has meant that customers are looking for more for less. That cost reduction has to come from somewhere. It is a perfect storm which has meant that a reseller or service provider's ability to invest in training and to maintain the skills of their people has been extremely difficult and in some cases non-existent," he said.

"Therefore people's skills have fallen behind, which can be a big issue when the technology changes at such a rapid pace. The gap that needs to be breached is extremely large."

According to the Employer Skills Survey 2015 - undertaken by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) and published in May 2016 - 14 per cent of UK businesses (regardless of industry) had staff that were not fully proficient in the skills required for their jobs. This decreased from 17 per cent in 2011 and 15 per cent in 2013.

The UKCES study also found that in transport and communications (in which a large majority of IT roles fit), 65 per cent of companies provided training in new technologies. The Digital Skills Crisis report found that only 35 per cent of ICT teachers hold a relevant qualification.

Zeshan Sattar, certifications evangelist at CompTIA, said he believes the main reason the skills gap has got to this point is the speed with which technology has changed in the past five years.

"A main reason [for the skills gap] is the changing technology. In the past five years, look how fast we have progressed in terms of technology, and how we utilise it within our businesses; things such as cloud technology, AI and the mobile-first era. This means people are having to reskill faster and faster. Anyone being skilled in any technology only has a half-life of two years now," he explained.

"By 2020 we will need around 745,000 cybersecurity specialists. Once we started digitalising our systems, we created a need for more skills. Sometimes with the education system, what was true five years ago quickly becomes outdated. So we need our teachers to upskill to teach the next generation of specialists. What is happening is a bit of a miss-match of skills, because when they come out of school or university, they don't have the right skills to meet that job as they have been taught for jobs that have existed previously."

"The gap that needs to be breached is extremely large - Shaun Lynn, Agilitas"

According to the January 2016 Digital Skills for the UK Economy report - commissioned jointly by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills and the Department for Culture and Media - 72 per cent of large companies and 49 per cent of SMEs are suffering tech skills gaps in the UK.

Pentesec's managing director Ian Turnbull said he thinks another important cause is the gap between technology and management staff.

"I think [the skills gap] is a major issue, compounded by the fact that as an industry, things are changing at such a rapid rate, making it increasingly difficult for even seasoned professionals to keep up with the changes in the landscape," he said.

"One of the other issues, beyond just getting the right skills, is bridging the gap between technology and management staff. You may find that a member of staff is exceptionally gifted from a technology standpoint, but do they have the ability to then interface with management, to articulate those solutions and why they need to progress that particular project?"