UK’s IT Skill Shortage

Cloud Employee founder and CEO, Nick Hargreaves, believes that looking to nations with high educational standards and large numbers of IT and engineering graduates – such as the Philippines – could be the answer to the UK’s skills shortage.

[su_note note_color=”#ffffcc” text_color=”#00000″]Nick Hargreaves, founder and CEO at Cloud Employee :

“Finding suitably skilled candidates in the UK is incredibly difficult for British companies at the moment, and the findings of the Global Skills Index come as no surprise. June’s Report On Jobs from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) found that IT professionals were the fourth most sought-after profession in the UK and a lack of people to fill these roles was affecting companies’ ability to grow. A third of respondents to this year’s Tech City UK report also considered a lack of local talent to be one of their biggest barriers to growth.

“The Global Skills Index also cites shortcomings in UK government policy that makes it complicated for companies here to hire talented workers from outside of the EU. Many small and medium businesses in the UK aren’t able to pay the high salaries that domestic and European developers command – meaning that their growth is seriously restricted or, even worse, they are forced to shut down.

“The best solution for UK companies in this situation at the moment is to consider outsourcing some of their operations. However, looking overseas for the right talent to plug this gap requires careful planning, and small companies that require only a handful of highly skilled IT workers aren’t going to find a solution by looking to the outsourcing giants such as Accenture.

“For my company, we needed to look outside of the UK and given the lackadaisical economic performance of the BRICS countries had to look elsewhere to find good developers that could provide a excellent service. We settled on Manila in The Philippines and set up Cloud Employee to provide Web, Mobile and Software Developers to British and international businesses. IT is one of the highest paid sectors in the Philippines and universities are producing 130,000 IT And Engineering graduates each year.

“There are many compelling reasons why British companies with IT recruitment problems should consider working with The Philippines. For a start, the Philippine culture is built on loyalty, integrity and hard work. The Philippines IT outsourcing industry is growing at an annual rate of 30%, which is faster than India. The Philippines has a culture that is very comparable with Western society due largely to over 500 years of Spanish and American influence. It’s also the third-largest English speaking nation in the world with over 80% of the nation speaking English fluently.”[/su_note][su_box title=”About Cloud Employee” style=”noise” box_color=”#336588″]Cloud Employee Ltd is a UK Company that specialises in supplying Western Startups, SME’s and Blue chip companies with dedicated mobile, web and software developers that work from our fully Western managed offices in the Philippines.[/su_box]