IT workforce growing four times faster than rest of UK

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Despite the economic turbulence hitting the UK over the past 18 months, the size of the IT workforce will continue to grow, according to e-skills UK.

The industry group has released a report showing that one in 18 people in the UK work in the tech sector, and the size of the sector is set to grow four times as quickly as the rest of the economy over the next decade.

While the UK workforce will grow by 0.3 per cent, the IT sector will grow about 1.2 per cent annually. Not all areas of the IT sector are looking positive, however. While ICT manager, IT strategy and planning, and software professional roles will see growth, the number of "lower skilled roles" will continue to shrink.

In addition, the telecoms industry will decline in size by 0.5 per cent annually.

While the overall growth is good news for the country’s 1.1 million IT workers, it could exacerbate the skills gap. The number of students taking computing-related subjects has fallen despite the chances of getting good work.

Karen Price, chief executive of e-skills UK, said in a statement: "Technology can help reduce costs and enable innovation, so continued investment into the sector, and into the skills of the people working in it, is essential for the UK’s economic future.”

While the number of IT jobs being advertised halved to 78,000 roles over the past year, making the problem less worrying than it has been in the past, the report noted that certain skills are still hard to find.

"Skills shortages were most often reported by firms recruiting for programming, technical support and IT & Telecoms management posts whilst, more generally, employers were often found to take issue with the business, technical and sector specific skills/knowledge of candidates for IT & Telecoms posts," the report noted.

While the new IT diploma should help, recent school leavers aren't the main source of talent for the IT sector. Indeed many of the new workers to the IT world come from other sectors, the report noted.

Some 57,800 of the 110,500 who join the IT sector come from other areas, rather than education or unemployment. Because of this, the proportion of workers under 30 has fallen from 33 per cent in 2001 to 22 per cent last year.

IT pros are highly educated, with 61 per cent holding a degree of some sort. Gender "remains a significant and worsening issue" with women taking up just 17 per cent of such roles, the report noted.

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