Yesterday we took a look at computer giant Capgemini's offer of an apprenticeship programme (a hundred of them, actually) in response to the huge skills deficit in junior software developers, and the cut-throat competition that deficit is causing between companies when it comes to recruiting new developers at that level.
Today, we've taken a step back to see just why there's such a skills shortage.
First off, there's the small matter of universities, or, to be more precise, their inflated tuition fees. They're enough to put many potential software developers off to start with, and seem to be doing a very good job of doing just that at present.
Then, of course, there's the amount of time involved. On the whole, degree courses tend to last for at least three years, and three years is a long time in the IT world. This means, theoretically-speaking, that it's quite possible for someone to start their studies based on a particular piece of bleeding-edge software, or methodology, only to find that once they've graduated that software or methodology isn't at the bleeding edge ... or at the leading edge ... or even anywhere close to the edge, thanks to industry advances during those three years.
However, it's not just universities contributing to the skills shortage. The economy isn't doing junior software developers much of a favour, either. That's because it's contributing to the decline in opportunities at that level within IT departments as a whole.
What do many companies appear to be doing instead of taking on junior developers? They're outsourcing anything and everything they can to save as much as possible (and there's probably a tax advantage in doing so, too). So work that should be done here in the UK is being done in places like India and the Philippines - usually at a fraction of the cost.
And talking of India, here's a little bit of irony for you: Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, an Indian IT outsourcing company told the Prime Minister that he was offering to take UK students to India and train them there in software, IT and engineering. They'd have three months of classroom training and a further nine months training in the workplace.
What Mr Cameron thinks of the idea is something we don’t know. Yet.
However, IT apprenticeships do seem to be the way forward, because it's not just Capgemini offering them. In Newcastle, outsourcing service provider Accenture has forty places available for their three-year apprenticeship programme, while a similar company, Infosys, is offering more than a hundred UK apprenticeships over the next five years.
So as software development courses at university look like losing popularity, IT apprenticeships are gaining both popularity and credibility. But the question is: will there be enough of those apprenticeships to cure the current skills shortage in the near future?
We'll just have to wait and see.
