Help yourself to a more rewarding future...

Move with the times and secure a job in the booming IT industry

The IT industry is, in essence, a forward-thinking sector, and according to Peter Wood from the ISACA, many more employers are now looking for professionals with people skills as well as the traditional IT know-how.

Speaking at Infosecurity Europe at London's Earls Court on April 20th, Mr Wood, a member of the ISACA conference committee, explained that IT employers are now looking for prospective employees to move with the times.

"Probably the biggest change I've seen is a requirement for much better people skills as well as technical skills," Mr Wood said.

"Historically people have been comfortable with siloed security skills, whether in deliverables or audit, and siloed IT skills in networking or Windows. Increasingly, as we see a change in the landscape with the way that IT is implemented with consumerisation, personal devices and social networking, boundaries are genuinely being eroded now.

"We're seeing an increase in requirements for people to be able to communicate clearly and intelligently, to be able to listen and interpret business cases as well as the technical solutions being delivered."

So, how should prospective employees show their people skills? Well, according to Mr Wood, ask not "can I do this?" but "how will I do this?"

"[Ask yourself] what's my favourite platform, what's my favourite social networking site?

"The more forward-thinking of those employers will be looking to adapt to that change and take advantage of that next generation of workers and make sure they have what they need in order to be productive."

But despite its modern image and the demand for employers to offer up-to-date people skills, is the industry itself moving with the times as it should be?

According to a recent e-skills report, IT and telecoms is "central" to the UK economy, providing a "key source of competitiveness" for all sectors, and in terms of employees, there are 1.2 million workers in the IT industry in the UK alone – so it's a great source of employment in a country that has millions struggling to find work at the moment.

But the e-skills report highlights one issue in this otherwise promising story – while employment in the IT profession has doubled since the early 1990s, the number of female workers has steadily declined.

It says that currently only 17 per cent of IT professionals are women, with men outnumbering women by 4:1 – a very outdated workplace scenario.

And e-skills attributes this to the low number of young women taking IT related subjects in secondary and higher education, as only 15 per cent of students on IT-related degrees in the UK are female.

E-skills says that although girls consistently outperform boys in IT-related subjects at school, they very rarely continue their studies further to pursue a career in IT.

These figures have led e-skills to challenge the perception of the sector in the hope of encouraging more women to make the most of the opportunities it offers. By launching clubs for young people aged between ten and 14, they hope to "bring the IT sector to life" using fashion, music, celebrities and design.

And by offering insights into successful women who have succeeded in IT-related careers, as well highlighting undergraduate internships, e-skills hopes that more women will think about the possibilities.

So for women who have the know-how, there are plenty of jobs on offer, something which Richard Nott, website director of CWJobs.co.uk, emphasised.

He said that the demand for IT professionals has increased consistently for the last six quarters.

"2010 saw steady growth in demand for IT personnel, with an eight per cent increase in the second quarter, followed by eight per cent in the third and five per cent in the final quarter of the year," Mr Nott said.

"We expect the IT jobs market to continue to grow steadily throughout 2011," he added.

So male or female, the jobs are there for the taking, just make sure you have the right skills – both with technology and people.