Chloe Brown

Jenny Lunnon investigates the growing need for employees who have high-level IT skills and an aptitude for business and management Although young people are far more computer-literate than their parents, many companies and organisations are finding they cannot recruit enough people with the specific technical and management skills that they need to maintain and develop the huge, complex computer systems on which they depend.

These skills shortages are likely to become even more serious in the future, as experienced ICT staff come up to retirement while the overall number of students enrolling for computer science degrees in the UK dwindles.

Moreover, employers say, students who have decided to study ICT are often not being taught the right skills: "There is a huge gap between what they actually need and what the universities are teaching," said Arunn Ramadoss of Newbury-based business application software company Micro Focus.

One major problem is that not enough students are learning COBOL, the computer programming language which many systems still use, notwithstanding the development of newer languages.

Stuart McGil,l of Micro Focus, said: "COBOL remains a crucial part of the IT landscape and runs around 75 per cent of the world's business transactions every day."

Companies are realising that is often better - and far less risky - to maintain and modernise the systems that they have built up gradually over time, rather than taking a rip and replace' approach and building new ones from scratch.

There is also an increasing demand for computer professionals whose excellent technical skills are complemented by equally well-developed business skills.

New collaborations between businesses and academic institutions are helping to address these issues. e-skills UK is an employer-led sector skills council for IT and telecoms and the companies that belong to its employer strategy forum (ESF) have helped to develop the curriculum of what has been described as the revolutionary' information technology management in business (ITMB) degree, which is now being offered by 13 UK universities. These include Oxford Brookes University, which tells prospective students: "The programme has been designed to include explicit and measurable objectives in terms of your employability."

Micro Focus is now a member of ESF and in May 2007 it also launched its own Academic ConnecTIONs (ACTION) programme.

"This aims to support universities around the world that are looking to re-introduce COBOL and large systems thinking," said Mr Ramadoss, who heads the initiative. It is supporting these institutions with advice to help ensure the curriculum is relevant, free software and books, and subsidised training and online support for teachers.

Bob Champion, ITMB course director at Oxford Brookes University, said: "It is evident that there is an on-going need for COBOL-literate programmers as we enter the 21st century. We feel the ACTION programme perfectly complements other aspects of our ITMB degree and will contribute significantly to the skill-set of our students."

Another reason for the computer skills shortage is gender imbalance. Very few schoolgirls are choosing to study computer science at university. For example, of the 75 prospective students who applied to study the subject at Oxford University, for entry in 2006, only five were girls. Just one girl was accepted, along with 32 boys.

Oxford High School pupil Chloe Brown drew attention to the issue last year by developing a website called RightClick which offers advice for girls considering careers in ICT.

Chloe was awarded a prize for this in the British Computer Society (Oxfordshire) Schools Web Competition in June 2007, as well as being judged the best female ICT student at GCSE level in the UK in a competition sponsored by the major computer companies.

On her website she writes: "IT is the cool choice of career. It offers young women an exciting and flexible career with almost unlimited opportunities" and she provides encouragement and information through personal stories, news, and useful contacts.

But many women who have already trained in ICT have found it difficult to combine a career in this fast-moving industry with having a family.

According to the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, which is funded by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, half a million women in the UK are qualified in either science, engineering or technology (SET) but less than a third work in those sectors, all of which are suffering a severe skills shortage, set to get worse in the coming decades.

Through a range of initiatives, such as promoting job sharing, and increasing employers' awareness of women's under-utilised potential, the Government is encouraging them to return to work in jobs that use their much-needed specialist skills and experience.

More information Oxford Brookes University Information Technology Management for Business degrees: www.brookes.ac.uk/studying/ courses/undergraduate/2007/itmb

Oxford University Computer Science degrees: www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/courses/ comp.shtml

e-skills UK www.e-skills.com

Micro Focus Action Programme www.microfocus.com/Resources/ Communities/Academic

RightClick - advice for girls considering careers in ICT: www.gdst.net/oxfordhigh/ rightclick/index.html

UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology: www.setwomenresource.org.uk/careers/returners

11:36am Monday 14th January 2008

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