A wake up call (for me, and UK IT skills)

I’ve discovered that the best encouragement to get me out of the bed like a shot in the morning is the business briefing just after the news at 6am on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. Unfortunately sometimes lethargy wins out and I find myself half hearing some of it,which was the case yesterday morning.

Perhaps I was half awake, but in an article by Hugh Pym an “academic studying trade deals” seemed to be suggesting that cheap migrant labour from Asia was a threat to the UK IT Industry and, what is more, that this threat was discouraging prospective students from studying Computing at University because they were worried there would be no jobs for them.

As a founder of a UK IT business, surrounded by other businesses in the heart of Silicon Roundabout, our experience is nothing like this.

The real issue is the massive lack of skills and talent, homegrown or otherwise and it is this, more than anything else, that is holding back our businesses.

Any prospective student of Computing should feel reassured they can look forward to a full and fantastically rewarding career – and any commentator on the industry should pop down to Old Street, check out the collaboration board for job offers at Google Campus, and think again what the effect of limiting opportunities for highly skilled IT workers in the UK might really have on the economy.