New survey reveals that recession drives demand for key IT skill sets

Published 31st July 2009

CWJobs (www.cwjobs.co.uk), the leading IT recruitment website, has today announced findings from its UK and Ireland skills survey. The survey revealed that the majority of respondents feel that the IT industry is being forced to retrain to meet the demands of the current economic climate, with so many candidates now available.

Raising the bar
An increase of candidates demands a higher calibre of IT skills from its professionals, to ensure success in this competitive landscape. It is not just those who are unemployed that are preparing for the future; the survey revealed that 62% of IT specialists currently in full time work felt they were required to retrain to keep up with the new high standards.

When researching current IT skill sets, less than a quarter of respondents felt that their skills were a good match to the current demand. In fact, 15% of graduates felt that their skill set was a poor match to that of the IT employment landscape.

Richard Nott, Website Director at CWJobs commented, “Looking forward, as more professionals are focusing on their key skill areas, there will be a shift in focus to communicating these correctly. IT professionals need to take control of their careers and understand the importance of developing and showcasing their skills correctly. This in turn, will allow them to have a competitive advantage against their peers and increase their opportunity to negotiate with prospective employers.”

Drilling down into what skills IT specialists felt were most in demand reveals SQL, .Net and Java were most prominent. This is a trend that professionals anticipate to continue over the next 12-24 months.

Increasing transparency
It is not just the role of the job seeker to ensure their skills are up to scratch. 65% of job seekers* felt employers were not clear enough about the skills they expected when recruiting for IT roles.

The survey also found that almost 60% of IT professionals feel there is not enough guidance specifically related to their skill sets when looking for a new job. This means that the importance of clearly defining job specifications and the requirements is more important than ever.

“The results of our survey launch the start of a new campaign where CWJobs hopes to highlight the gap between the skills people possess, and those required for new IT roles. Through the recession we will continue to provide tailored IT guidance offering further insight to job seekers“ added Mr Nott.

CWJobs has already taken strides to help IT professionals bridge the skills gap with www.myskillscloud.co.uk. This site enables job seekers to compare their skills against demand in the IT job market by region and job type.

CWJobs will be releasing a comprehensive whitepaper with the findings from this survey in July 2009.

*Percentage calculated on responses from those that were unemployed or in-between jobs at the time the survey was conducted.