The UK IT workforce faces terminal decline unless project management skills become an immediate focus for existing employees, says an influential user group.

The annual IT Skills Trends Review from the Institute for Management of Information Systems (Imis), shows that salaries for technical jobs are falling because of competition from abroad. But average pay for project management rose by nearly seven per cent last year as demand for broader skills increases.

Imis is predicting highest demand in 2008/9 as the infrastructure work on the 2012 Olympics reaches its peak and major government programmes such as identity cards and the NHS scheme gather pace in the run-up to the General Election.

New-style university courses will only produce their first graduates in 2008, and unless training for existing staff starts now, project management will follow technical jobs overseas, says Philip Virgo, strategic adviser to Imis.

‘Rebuilding university courses from scratch takes time, so we have to expand rapidly the updating of those already in the workforce,’ he said.

‘This is a serious wake-up call. Unless we start rebuilding the skills base immediately we are going to face a really nasty period in 2008/9 and the knock-on effect will be that we will contract skills from abroad.

‘If we don’t have the skills then Asians will come and do it for us. And that will wipe out what is left of our mass-market industry.’

Karen Price, chief executive of sector skills council e-Skills UK, says there is no lack of opportunity for technology workers.

‘Current forecasts show that the whole sector is in growth again, but the perennial skills shortage is also coming to the fore and the requirements are project and programme management,’ she said.

‘A lot of large companies are focusing their training and investment in these areas, but my worry is smaller firms and their ability to access the right sort of training at an affordable price.’

Imis is calling for tax incentives to boost employee training, including individually funded course costs to be offset against income tax and employees in training to be exempt from income tax and national insurance.

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