The IT sector feels this shortage keenly, while the fast-moving telecoms sectors is fighting its own war for mobile technology talent. And while the banking sector can offer superior salaries for IT professionals to other sectors, it is finding that candidates are increasingly looking East to Asia for work.
STEM subjects are an area close to IBM’s European recruitment manager Sej Butler’s heart. He told Recruiter: “To ensure a steady stream of talent for the future, IBM supports fostering STEM skills in children and young adults…through outreach activities and programmes spanning early learning years through to school leavers up to university level.”
Big areas in which IBM is currently hiring include SAP consultants, senior programme managers and architects, and software sales people with industry skills, he adds.
Scott Simons, director of global recruitment services, Networkers International, told Recruiter that within telecoms, candidates who can work with new mobile technology on the new generation of 4G mobiles, which offer higher specifications and more bandwidth, were now in short supply in the US and Asia.
Increasingly clients are providing local jobs for local people rather than expats, Simons says. “I would say 65-70% of our contractors are Americans working in the US, Africans working in Africa and Asians working in Asia. Our clients want to save costs on accommodation, flights and work permits.”
But the migrant cap is hitting the UK’s ability to recruit talent from overseas. Greg Allen, Nokia’s head of recruitment EMEA, told Recruiter that closing the door on talent coming out of Asia and China will cause a lot of top jobs to be exported. “Currently most organisations are outsourcing repetitive work, with the innovation and development phases done in country. However, more and more we will have to outsource roles as the number of IT professionals declines in this country.”
Tom Lee, director, Harvey Nash, told Recruiter that IT support staff with generic Microsoft skills remain the easier candidates to source, with a lot of organisations outsourcing and even offshoring these skills, leaving a glut of talent in the UK.
Where IT skills shortages exist, other sectors such as creative industries are struggling to compete with the finance sector, which can offer superior salaries, says Darren Chapman, founder and director at Redrock Consulting. Consequently firms with big IT teams have relocated operations outside London to the South Coast and so can attract talent looking to move out of London who want a better quality of life.
But some top banking IT talent are leaving these shores altogether, says Lawrence Hargreaves, managing director at Nicoll Curtin Technology. He says that while the chancellor’s increase of the bank levy announced in the Budget was making life difficult for UK banks, Singapore was doing its best to encourage banks to relocate operations. “Singapore is recruiting heads of IT desks and managers running large infrastructure teams, people who are global heads.
“In Singapore’s 2010 budget, the finance minister allocated a productivity fund of £5.5bn over the next five years dedicated to tax benefits and training subsidies for firms to get more high-level business into Singapore.”
Stakeholder comment
Richard Nott, website director, CWJobs.co.uk
“The IT recruitment market has continued to stabilise and CWJobs.co.uk has seen demand for IT professionals increase for six consecutive quarters. We expect that the market will continue to grow steadily throughout 2011, fuelled by a recovering economy and increased business confidence.”
Andrew Gardner, divisional director, Reed Technology
“The return to form of the permanent market has been a real trend. There is an element of confidence coming back into the market. We have noticed a real increase in SME recruitment. Some of our smaller clients are now hiring again on the permanent side. Where they kept things tight in the downturn, they are now coming out and hiring permanent people.”
Greg Allen, head of recruitment EMEA, Nokia
“A big issue is getting line managers to understand that even though there has been a recession they cannot just offer contractors
£5-£10 [per hour] lower than their expectations, thinking the market is saturated. Most of our role is to coach managers on the unique IT market and the intensifying war for talent.”