IT staff face skills and training shortfall

More evidence has emerged that UK firms are facing a shortfall of IT skills, with many IT pros failing to be offered suitable training.

E-Skills UK, an organisation that monitors the UK's information and communications sector, published its latest bulletin on Friday. The report, which covers the second quarter of 2006, found that 17 percent of UK companies believe their existing employees suffer from a lack of IT skills.

More worryingly, 11 percent of companies surveyed reported that their ICT staff also lack some key skills, compared to 5 five percent at the end of 2005.

"In general, medium-large establishments were the most likely to report having skills gaps (whether general, user- or IT professional-related), while by sector it was services organisations that most commonly stated this to be the case (in general terms and for user skills, though ICT firms were more likely to have gaps in the skills of their ICT professionals)," reported E-Skills UK.

The report also found a decline in the number of IT professionals who received any job-related training, from 31 percent to 29 percent.

Better news for IT staff is that around 17 percent of companies said they were expecting to hire IT staff soon, as this image shows:

The full report can be seen on E-Skills UK's website as a PDF file.