IT students look elsewhere for work

Information technology is a popular choice for university students, with almost one in ten opting for an IT degree course, a recent study has found. However, more than half of IT students said they intended to look outside of the technology sector for employment.

Of the 20,000 students taking part in the study from careers information publisher GTI, more than 1,700 were taking a computer science degree. The subject is the fifth most popular choice after engineering, law, business studies, and economics and politics.

However, of the 1,385 students considering a career in the IT sector, only 591 of those were taking an IT degree, leaving many trained technologists preferring to find employment in other sectors.

The report also found that while there was a fairly even gender split across all degree courses, 70 percent of students expressing an interest in an IT career were male.
Meanwhile, IBM emerged as the most popular employer for those wanting an IT career, heading the list for top choice of workplace and best place for internships and work experience. BT, Accenture, Microsoft and Intel also scored well in these categories.

Mobile operators topped the list for least popular potential graduate employer. More than one in ten students wanting an IT career said they would not consider working for T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone or O2.