Know the skills in shortest supply? Think again...

Think of skills in short supply and it's all too easy to reach for acronyms like J2EE or XML or well-known product names. But it seems harder-to-define competencies such as leadership, management and teamwork are just as important. Sonya Rabbitte looks at what this year's silicon skills surveys showed.

Look at the financial results of most IT vendors over the past year and it becomes evident customers are spending less on IT projects.

It's not surprising. A lot has changed in the past year. Redundancies are rising. Job vacancies are largely falling.

But while recruitment is down, what's emerging is a landscape where many companies feel they might not have signed up the right recruits in the first place.

Almost half of UK respondents to silicon.com's Skills Survey 2002 agreed there is still a skills crisis, with most feeling it in their own companies.

IT departments may well be counting the cost of cutting heads, with 14.5 per cent of respondents strongly agreeing, and 32.4 per cent agreeing that the IT skills shortage is still widespread.

Which raises an interesting question: If IT departments are cutting back on projects, why do they still perceive there to be a skills shortage?

The skills shortage is real, says Richard Wilson, business policy executive with the Institute of Directors (IoD), and can be attributed to poor recruitment policies.

"It comes down to a lack of leadership skills. Companies may not be recruiting people in the most efficient way. They may not be recruiting people in job centres, maybe just through word of mouth, or magazine. It sounds almost prosaic to say it but job centres are actually good places to find people," he said.

Break the skills shortages into sub-categories and it is evident that the programming skills essential for web-related projects are a top priority of IT managers. It's also where they see the biggest shortage of skilled workers, with 35 per cent of respondents claiming programming skills were in short supply in their workplace, ahead of most other technical categories.

Another surprising element is that non-IT skills such as leadership and project management are considered equally as integral to the running of an IT department - and just about equally as lacking.

In the UK, 37 per cent complained project management skills are missing in their workplace, with 34 per cent saying their departments lack leadership skills.

Interestingly, just 13.8 per cent said budget management skills are in short supply.

David Taylor, president of IT director association Certus, agrees project management skills are lacking in IT circles.

He reckons this is because positions naturally attract applicants with strong technology skills but poorer business acumen. Also there is a reluctance on the part of employers to invest in management training.

However, he adds that UK managers have a skewed definition of what project management entails. "There is this idea that project management is being able to report back what was said at a meeting but it is a role that is actually about inspiration, managing the politics, focusing on success. A lot of project management just tends to focus on the risk involved," he said.

There is an historical reason for this poor level of leadership, according to the IoD's Wilson.

"It goes back to the way this country industrialised. A lot of emphasis was put on 'on the job training' and being a jack of all trades. Countries that were less industrialised in the nineteenth century like Germany and the US introduced formal management training because they were playing catch up.

"In the eighties and nineties British management has been better trained in terms of degrees and MBAs but I think they're still picking up on this historical residue," he added.

Indeed, it is instructive to compare results with those of silicon.fr's French respondents who seem quite confident with their management skills - just 24.9 per cent cited a lack of project management skills and 23.5 per cent were concerned by poor leadership.

Yet silicon.de's German figures don't tally with the historic theory. Seventy-three per cent of German respondents said project management skills were lacking in their workplace and 41.7 per cent said leadership skills were poor.

Allowing for the different interpretation of non-technical attributes across Europe, it can still be said IT professionals are obviously aware that management skills are as vital to an IT project as programming skills.

Such a focus on management is likely to make IT more widely accepted in boardrooms, and more effective, everyone would hope. There just has to be enough non-technical business savvy across IT departments to make sure the whole contribution is appreciated.

silicon.com's Skills Survey 2002 Hot Topic can be found at http://www.silicon.com/ss2002 .

Other recent skills-related content:
The skills contradiction: IT pros laid off but positions still going begging?
http://www.silicon.com/a51895
Skills Survey 2002: Skills shortage? What skills shortage?
http://www.silicon.com/a51887
Skills Survey 2002 - what is it, why should you care?
http://www.silicon.com/a51690