Britain faces dearth of IT professionals, 22,000 work permits issued in a year

Britain faces dearth of IT professionals, 22,000 work permits issued in a year

	Published : Tue, 22 Nov 2005 07:05 By : Richard Owen Print this Story

LONDON: Britain had issued 22,000 work permits for information technology workers in 2004-2005 and nearly 85 per cent of them were from India, according to the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo), which secured the information through a Freedom of Information Act request.

ATSCo said according to figures it had obtained, 18,248 work permits were granted to Indian IT professionals in the year ended June 2005, 1,081 to U.S. professionals and 464 to Australian workers.

ATSCo said this is indicative of the country's shortage of home-grown talent. The number of British students taking up IT as a subject of study is critically low.

ATSCo's chief executive Ann Swain said there is evident skill shortage in the country and this becomes a pull factor in bringing foreign IT workers, but "the concern is that some organisations may be taking advantage of the visa system to import cheap labour from abroad.”

The organisation said the figures it got indicated that multinational companies are operating an “offshore, onshore” model, recruiting staff at low wages in countries like India and transferring them to the West, but refusing to lift their wages prevailing in these countries.

Swain said British companies should invest more in training underutilised professionals in the country and depend less on overseas skills.

British IT companies like LogicaCMG and Xansa have made use of the offshore outsourcing model and built development centres in Asian countries, especially in India.

Another interesting factor brought to the fore is that some of the leading outsourcing companies have strong British presence. Indian IT companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro Technologies and Infosys have increased presence in the U.K. Said Swain: "The transfer of jobs between the U.K. and India is now very much two-way traffic ... while low-skilled IT jobs continue to be shipped to India, highly skilled Indian IT professionals are coming to the UK to take up managerial roles.