A dire lack of skills is creating a ‘crisis’ of competence within South Africa’s IT industry, according to a study that has surveyed 130 tech professionals in the country.
Technology media company International Data Group (IDG) Connect has published a study that says 69% of those surveyed agree that there is a severe general shortage of IT skills in South Africa.
The majority say they also believe the whole industry is “storing up problems for the future”, even as Gartner research has forecast that South Africa’s IT sector spending is to grow by 11% this year.
Other findings of the IDG study include that 77% of respondents don’t think there are good enough opportunities to develop future CIOs, 81% of respondents believe that SA is losing its best talent overseas, and 83% saying that many IT employees lack the skills they need in a world moving towards cloud and managed services.
Moreover, 62% of respondents disagree that the IT industry as a whole is wisely investing in the next generation, while only 35% agree and 6% strongly agree that they are satisfied with training and development opportunities at their organisation.
And 50% say it is difficult to acquire the specific skills the South African market requires.
Results also highlight IT specialists’ negative view of younger workers, as 90% of respondents say that entry level workers have a different work ethic to older employees and 93% adding that there is a significant skills gap between entry level and senior IT professionals.
This particular finding is unique to SA, as previous IDG research has found that 56% of IT and business professionals globally think that entry-level workers have a different work ethic to older employees.
“These findings suggest the South African IT market has reached a crisis point,” says Kathryn Cave, editor at IDG Connect, in a statement.
“Training is urgently needed to nurture core skills. Failure to deliver this could have a massive negative impact on the development of tomorrow’s CIOs,” adds Cave.
Zimkhita Buwa, a senior SAP BI Consultant from the city of Cape Town, agrees that South Africa is in ‘crisis’ regarding the state of its IT skills.
“We have a problem on our hands in the sense that we have these jobs that are being advertised but it is incredibly difficult to find candidates, yet we are sitting with a high percentage of unemployed graduates who cannot fill these positions,” says Buwa.
South African ICT industry specialist and consultant Paul Booth says he agrees with the study that training in the country needs improving. But he also says that local skills are high in demand globally.
“I think generally our skills in this country are seriously sought upon by big players,” says Booth.
“Overseas, people tend to be very specialised, very narrowly focused. Our people tend to have a much broader sort of experience. And many of the international companies are looking for that capability, and they are seeking people from here to join them to exploit that situation.
“There are people leaving, but I don’t think it’s as bad as the perception is, and there are also, quite a lot of people coming back strangely enough,” says Booth.
Booth adds that another big problem within South Africa’s IT sector is that of retaining IT employees who, after receiving training from their company, decide to leave the organisation.
He adds that it normally takes two years for a company to recoup the investment cost of training.
“I don’t think people hang on that long.
“I think people are job-hopping too quickly with the minimum of experience because they can earn a lot more. And I think they’re looking at their own short-term personal objectives rather than the long term strategic situation.
However, Booth adds that the skills shortage in the IT sector is not just a South African problem, but a global issue.
And IDG Connect’s Kathryn Cave agrees, especially when it comes to high level IT skills.
“I can't help feeling that the development of skills necessary to nurture tomorrow's CIO is a global issue,” Cave tells ITWeb Africa.
“The role of the CIO is clearly changing and there does seems to be a lot of debate about what skills this individual needs to thrive in future. Overall, there appears to be a tension between easy to identify "hard skills" and more difficult to isolate ‘soft skills’,” she adds.
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