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Now is the time to hitch a ride on the ICT roller-coaster

David Wilson, Information Age

18/10/2006 21:34:08

Following the IT boom of the 1990s, the early part of the this century has been more doom and gloom than boom for the ICT industry. However, recently there have been distinct signs of an improvement in the job prospects for ICT professionals, and in line with the roller-coaster nature of the industry this has quickly developed into forecasts of significant ICT skills shortages in the immediate future.

In addition to media reports tracking this roller-coaster ride, signs of the impending skills shortage issue are evident in the ICT Skills Foresighting Working Group established by Senator Helen Coonan (report published in June 2006 and available through http://www.dcita.gov.au/ie/ict_skills) and the National ICT Skills Summit held in Brisbane in June 2006 and organised by the Queensland Government.

The demand side of the skills shortage is likely to exacerbated by supply side issues as universities will be graduating fewer and fewer ICT graduates in the next few years, given the falls in applications for and enrolments in ICT courses.

NSW experienced a 17.3 per cent fall in UAC first preference applications (1766 to 1461) and a 20.4 per cent fall in all UAC preference applications (14,189 to 11,295) for the field of education "IT" between 2005 and 2006.

Similarly, UAC statistics show a fall of 38.9 per cent in offers (3080 to 1883) for courses with field of education "IT" between 2001 and 2006.

These NSW trends have been replicated across Australia and some academics have estimated that in 2005 there were more students enrolled in the third year of ICT degrees than in the first and second years combined.

A survey by the Australian Council of Professors and Heads of Information Systems (ACPHIS) undertaken in September 2006 further illustrates these trends (16 respondents, approximately, half the information systems schools in Australia):

This situation begs the question: if there is a looming ICT skills shortage, why are applications for, and enrolments in, ICT courses still falling?

There appears to be no one simple answer, but possible reasons that have been advanced include: • fears that the improvement is a 'spike' and will not be sustained; • a natural lag in students responding to the changed jobs situation - things might improve in 2007 or 2008; • despite the improvement ICT has lost its "golden glow" - it is no longer a discipline of choice; • the stereotype of ICT being dominated by male "nerds" is strong and puts off potential applicants; • current school students being computer literate and not appreciating the career opportunities in the industry; • ICT does not appeal to the aspirations of GenY.

In reality all these reasons may contribute to the issue. One of the outcomes of the National ICT Skills Summit was the ACS and AIIA joining forces to help promote a better image for the industry - the ACS is already running prime time TV advertisements promoting ICT professionals and ICT as a career.

The lack of interest in ICT courses is certainly influenced by a poor understanding of the ICT industry among the general public - the ACPHIS survey identified "awareness of information systems" as one of the most important challenges.

Peter Grant of the Queensland Government has proposed a framework for defining an ICT career, largely because he feels that "discussion about IT careers is often clouded by a lack of understanding about the enormous breadth of the discipline".

His framework also recognises the changes in the ICT industry with many information jobs migrating from a central IT department to be integrated in business units.

The framework defines four career streams: Technology Building: Specialised programming and engineering roles involved in building systems from the ground up. This stream accounted for a majority of ICT jobs in the 1980s and 1990s

Technology Implementation: Business technology roles that are critical in managing and implementing change across organisations. ICT roles integrated into business units attempting to leverage competitive advantage from packaged software implementations

Technology Services: Within organisations, roles that provide and support the network infrastructure that underpins technology building and implementation. More broadly, an entire industry spanning ICT services to both the government and private sector

Technology Governance: Strategic roles implementing organisation strategy by aligning business and ICT strategic planning

These broad career streams emphasise the importance of IT students in Australia being given broad knowledge that includes people, business and technology skills - a pure ICT focus was probably insufficient for a traditional technology-building role but is certainly inadequate for the newer career streams that are emerging for ICT professionals.

Shirley Gregor's article in this issue takes up this theme.

On a positive note, many universities have reported slight increases in mid-year applications and enrolments in ICT courses (although given the small number of mid-year enrolments this can often be misleading) and reports from the open and information days held at many universities in September 2006 indicate greater attendance and interest in ICT courses than has been evident for many years.

The numbers do not yet herald a return to the numbers of even four or five years ago, let alone the boom times of the 1990s (which are unlikely to ever return), but they are a sign of the beginning of a Paul Keating 'J' curve for ICT course applications and enrolments.

Sources of further information: "Building Australian ICT Skills: Report of the ICT skills foresighting work group", Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Australian Government, June 2006. http://www.dcita.gov.au/ie/ict_skills

Grant, P. (2006): "A Framework for Defining an IT Career", Office of Government ICT, Department of Public Works, Queensland Government.

National ICT Skills Summit organized by Queensland Government - report of outcomes and in the AIIA newsletter www.iib.qld.gov.au/SkillsChallenge/downloads/communique.pdf http://aiia.e-newsletter.com.au/link/id/8e4bdb6dee6c9c205318P3d1184ae95bf584280cc/ page.html#e83e2fa31ddfe4362838

David Wilson is Associate Dean (Education), Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney