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On 2015-02-18 16:07, Jay Bennie wrote:
interesting reading, i wonder when people at the top will realise just because you have a qualification, wont mean your any good at it. Software development is as much an art form as it is a trained skill. All this will do is flood the market with crap programmers.
There is more to the Digital skills gap than software engineering, and coding skills.
The security market is bemoaning the loss of the hacker/cracker ethos, where younger people aren't interested in breaking things (most of them break easily enough). Probably also that it is a skill which is useful for defending (somewhat - it is over-egged), but illegal to practice, bit like lock breaking except a lot more varied, and the important locks are replaced every time someone publishes a way to break them.
Testing too has always struggled to gain a foothold, with many software organizations not even having professional testing people. Imagine that in any other engineering discipline.
"We built you a car, nice engine, cool decals. Tested? We just drove it around the track a few times, and one of our mechanics took it home for the weekend."
I can't really recommend general IT as a career either, as it is hugely uncertain, medicine and Undertaking are probably more reliable fields. There is always room for specialist expertise, but people who can build you a general server, are largely fungible. There will always be room at the top, but the skills needed are changing fast, and when the dust settles who knows where things will be.
If the problem is real enough market forces will solve it, sometimes I think there is a "recruiting well is hard work, therefore there is a shortage" mentality.
But current leading job in Exeter for IT, want Linux, Windows, switches and networking, databases, vmware, Chef/Puppet, and they want to pay you what you'd get for 5 years of teaching, or about the same as a junior policeman or junior fireman. Not to do down those roles, but you'll need an IQ in the top percent or two and 5 to 10 years experience to even be anywhere near that.
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