the Labour Market Survey Report - Council of European ...

4.6 IT Practitioners in the United Kingdom
The position of IT Practitioner skills in the UK from 1995 was laid out rather fully in “Skills99”. The
workforce was characterized (as of 1999) as:
• Large: over 850,000, including Managers, Operators and Computer Engineers, but not including
some of those working in Sales & Marketing, Education (e.g. university lecturers), or Defence;
• Split between the five categories within the “SOC90” occupational classification:
- Computer Analysts/Programmers (some 34%),
- Computer Systems Managers (some 20%),
- Computer Operators (some 19% - share falling steadily),
- Software Engineers (some 19% - share rising steadily), and
- Computer Engineers (8%)
• The majority working in IT User organizations (70%), although the share of employment in IT
supplier companies was growing fast;
• Largely male, and steadily becoming more so (75% in 1999, from 71% in 1995);
• Mostly employed by large organizations (75% are employed by organizations with more than 50
staff);
• Relatively young (2/3 aged between 25 and 44); and
• Mostly full time (92%), and mostly employed (93%, although the numbers of self-employed
contractors grew steadily over the second half of the 1990s)
In terms of the demand for IT Practitioners, all “proxy” indicators examined confirmed at that time real
shortages in the labour market, including:
• Staff turnover (typically 15-20%)
• Employers’ survey assessments (mostly of hard-to-fill vacancies) with 15% to 35% of employers
reporting heavy demand for specific skills, and high percentages in the public sector;
• Price inflation: both salaries and contractor dates rates both increasing well above rates of
inflation and average earnings;
• Apparent Recruitment Demand, with IT job advertisement volumes running at record levels (up
to 1999).
The available supply, measured in terms of the qualification levels and flows from the different branches
of the education systems, was well below those required to sustain the remarkable growth levels. In
particular:
• 28% of current IT Practitioners had a first degree as their highest academic qualification (of whom
37% have a single, major, or balanced-subject IT degree)
• A third of graduates from IT-related courses worked as IT Practitioners, while 2/3 did not;
• Employers of IT Practitioners who recruit them from “fresh” graduates were increasingly inclined
(and forced!) to recruit those who did not study IT (see Section 2.2);
• Although numbers on IT Degree courses continue to grow, the academic achievement levels of
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| C E P I S I.T. PRACTITIONER SKILLS IN EUROPE | Section 4