Demand for IT Graduates has doubled in the past five years

July 18, 2012 - PRLog -- Unemployment figures across Europe are increasing more and more each day, and so it is reassuring for IT graduates that demand for their skills and expertise is being headhunted by firms such as Vodafone, IBM and Accenture. Over 2,000 IT jobs advertised in the past three months have been specifically asking for fresh IT graduates.

But - record high graduate unemployment and demand for IT graduates doubling? Surely this is a contradiction.

However, in IT there is a vast and expanding skills gap between the current graduate’s skillset and employer requirements. Increasing amounts of students don’t have the necessary degree course or the right skills, such as programming or coding. Stemming from the UK National Curriculum, young people do not get taught the basics of computer science, but often only a brief look into Microsoft Office and how to use a search engine.

Google also recently championed the idea to teach coding in school - strongly supported by various societies such as the Association for Learning Technology - to guarantee future investment in IT skills and ensure the next “Facebook” is created in the UK.

A spokesperson for itgraduatejobs.co said, “We are finding that there is an increasing demand for strong IT graduates, but schools are not encouraging students to study computer science in higher education or generate an interest in coding – despite the fact IT companies will help define future economic growth in the UK.”

www.itgraduates.co/

Data Source: 12 July 2012: itjobswatch.co.uk, guardian.co.uk, bbc.co.uk