State to slide from 3rd to 21st in EU on IT skills gap - study

Ireland will plummet from third to 21st place in a European league table measuring information and communications technology skills within two years, according to a new study.

Analyst firm IDC says Ireland will have an 18.7 per cent skills gap between supply and demand in the ICT sector by 2008, above the predicted European average of 15.8 per cent and an increase from an estimated 5.7 per cent gap, or 1,200 positions, in Ireland today.

The drop represents the largest predicted fall of any country amongst 31 surveyed, and a compound annual skills gap growth rate of 65 per cent.

"It is very worrying that we are currently ranked third but will drop to 21st by 2008. That is a big drop," said Michael Galvin, Irish country manager for Cisco Systems, which sponsored the survey. "This is potentially a big productivity issue, and is a national economic and political issue."

Ireland will need to act "quickly and cleverly" to deal with the situation, he said, noting that the skills gap generally matches the predictions of Irish engineering bodies.

The predicted skills shortage is likely to hold back Ireland's competitive ability as well as Europe's overall, he said. One-third of the 31 countries surveyed will see demand for skills outstrip supply by over 20 per cent. Countries that are expected to improve their skills gap by 2008 include some of those that directly compete with Ireland for inward investment, including the UK (moving from tenth to first place), the Czech Republic (moving from 21st to seventh), Hungary (moving from 17th to ninth) and Norway (moving from 19th to fifth).

The survey, which gathered data from 950 senior level managers in Europe, looks broadly at the networking skills sector.

These touch on a number of ICT areas, ranging from security to business applications to telephony. Mr Galvin said that the biggest skills shortage appears to be for workers in the security area, followed by wireless networking, IP telephony, and business applications.

According to the survey, one-third of organisations said they had hired new ICT staff in the previous 18 months and said that it was difficult to find the right people with the right skills.

According to the survey, 60 per cent of organisations across Europe said that they use their IT and internet networks to underpin their business processes and communicate with customers and business partners and suppliers. The importance of the network to their business would continue to increase, said 89 per cent of respondents.

"There would be a consensus from this survey that networking and ICT skills are a bedrock for productivity," said Mr Galvin. With the predicted shortages, "the potential for problems is now worrying, but there are a lot of things that industry and education can do together." He said that the survey is a repeat of a similar survey done by IDC for Cisco in the late 1990s.

The company found the survey useful for gauging the course content and impact of its Cisco Networking Academy Programme, which provides certification in networking skills and is offered as part of many third-level engineering programmes.