Dearth of mid-level professionals threatening IT innovation

Nov. 1, 2011 - PRLog -- A serious shortage of mid-level IT professionals is threatening the UK’s ability to launch innovative products and services, specialist recruitment consultancy IntaPeople has said.

The company believes that not enough young talent is being brought through the ranks, which is resulting in a growing void of productive middle-tier staff.

Comparing Q3 of this year with the same period in 2010, IntaPeople found that the average number of applications submitted for mid-level IT vacancies dropped by a worrying 22%.

Stephen Riley, sales director of Intapeople (http://www.intapeople.com/), commented:

“This is of great concern to UK businesses. We might have a lot of talent at the very top, but mid-level workers are generally the ones responsible for turning strategy into action.

“The IT industry waits for nobody, and unless we promptly address this skills shortage we are in serious risk of slipping behind the other nations in terms of innovation. We are already hearing about certain projects being put on hold because firms can’t find the individuals they require.”

IntaPeople has said that C# Developers, Java Developers and Business Analysts are currently among those professionals in highest demand. The company is now calling on the Government to help plug the gap by actively encouraging more young people into IT.

“A big problem is that most young people have no idea about the various career paths available to them until it is far too late,” Mr Riley said.

“We need to be educating students about specific professions within IT much earlier on, guiding them towards the skills that are most sought after. For their part, businesses need to think about how they can improve their training programmes to fast-track junior workers into positions that are particularly hard to fill.

“It may seem unfeasible that, with almost one million young people currently out of work, companies are still struggling to fill certain vacancies. Unfortunately, this is exactly the position we find ourselves in because there is complete disconnect between what is being taught and what employers are actually looking for.”

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IntaPeople is a specialist recruitment consultancy that offers bespoke solutions within the Datacentre, IT, engineering and commercial sectors. Established in 1994, IntaPeople sources high quality candidates for a wide range of permanent, contract and temporary positions across the UK and Europe.