the great skills exodus: an emc report

The Great Skills Exodus 2

The Great Skills Exodus: Why the industry’s leading IT talent is

deserting businesses

Foreword Today’s organisations will succeed based on their ability to move and respond at speed, excite their customers, differentiate their businesses and safeguard their brands. These commercial imperatives have remained unchanged for decades; however, the potential of digital technology to drive through and support these objectives, and the pace at which customer demands are shifting, are greater than ever before. To create exceptional user experiences that cater to the up-and-coming, always-online “Information Generation”, businesses need to make it easy for customers to engage with them anytime, anywhere, on any device. Disruptive innovation is displacing the status quo, changing how markets operate, knocking industry leaders off their perches and rapidly shifting consumer expectations. Established businesses need to evolve their offering to compete. The past decade has shown the rise of new agile, cloud-based businesses such as Uber and Airbnb and the downfall of others that didn’t innovate in time, like Kodak and Blockbuster. The core of this evolution is the challenge of digital transformation: customer demands inevitably centre on greater responsiveness and more innovative digital and mobile points of contact; Business opportunity often centres around making better use of the data they hold. This makes it more important than ever for organisations to have a cutting-edge IT capability to drive growth. The IT industry is currently suffering from an immense shortage of skilled workers, with the number of unfilled digital jobs in Europe forecasted to reach three quarters of a million by 2020, according to analyst firm Empirica. There is well-documented evidence, not least in EMC’s Big Data League study, that making better use of data is key to helping organisations grow revenue; allowing them to address the needs of new markets and audiences, and to improve operational effectiveness and efficiency. The flurry of recent appointments of Chief Data Officers is testament to the realisation that data is a highly valuable asset when it comes to modern day businesses. Making the most of this asset requires a skilled and motivated IT team.

This study was commissioned to identify the issues businesses are facing when it comes to attracting and especially retaining their core IT talent. Companies risk falling behind in the innovation race, resulting in a loss of market share to more agile and disruptive firms, if they fail to provide fulfilling careers for their IT teams. The priority for businesses should be transforming the IT function from a tactical one, which supports business goals, to a strategic one which guides the future of the organisation. The insights and recommendations in this report provide a good platform to help organisations raise their game and nurture talented and committed workers to help them with their digital transformation efforts. Those that cannot engage, motivate, attract and retain their staff will ultimately face an uphill struggle to keep up with competition. Ross Fraser, MD UK & I


Executive Summary This report shows that organisations in the UK and Ireland are failing to prioritise IT in the wider business, risking the loss of IT talent.

Seven out of 10 (71%) respondents questioned admitted looking for a new job in the past year

Of the factors that would cause employees to apply for new roles, restrictions on career progression (49%), unwillingness to change the way that “things have always been done” (26%) and a lack of senior understanding of IT’s role in achieving corporate goals (23%) were all cited

Pay rated only marginally higher (51%) than career progression as a frustration. However, IT employees in the UK’s three key sectors (manufacturing, financial services and engineering & construction) prioritised career progression over pay as the main factor in the decision to consider another role

When employers were questioned about the key factors that would cause their employees to leave, they selected the same top two options; pay package 58% and lack of opportunities for career progression (47%)

Eighty-eight percent agree that the growth/success of the organisation is fundamentally reliant on technology

Among the reasons IT workers chose to join their company, four out of 10 selected positive reputation (42%) and the same percentage named pay package. Where the organisation is based (37%) and opportunities for career progression (31%) were also rated highly

This study revealed that over two thirds of IT employees (67%) only receive training twice a year, with 11% admitting to have never received training since being in their role.

Seventy-eight percent said the growth and success of their organisation is fundamentally reliant on themselves or their team

Half of respondents (50%) aspire to work at large IT firms like IBM, EMC and Microsoft, 41% at digital organisations like Google and Facebook and a third (32%) at new players and start-ups in the market like Uber. Just under a third (29%) aspire to work at established organisations in their market, such as banks and retailers


Introduction The aim of this study has been to better understand how employees and businesses are reacting to digital transformation from an IT skills perspective. The study polled 500 IT and cybersecurity employees in organisations of 250+ employees in the UK and 109 ITDMs in any organisation size in Ireland. Areas of questioning included: whether they would leave their current organisation, the reasons for joining the business, innovation within the company, and career progression and verticals. Different verticals were also compared, including financial services, retail, public sector, IT & Telecoms, professional services, manufacturing and engineering & construction.

1. Why are IT workers looking for new jobs? Seventy-one percent of IT and cybersecurity workers have looked for a new job in the past year and the reasons for wanting to leave their organisation centre around career progression and the internal culture. In fact, restrictions on career progression (49%) were rated almost as important as pay (51%) as a key frustration. The unwillingness to change the way that ‘things have always been done’ (26%) and a lack of senior understanding of IT’s role in achieving corporate goals (23%), were also named as reasons to consider new positions. The survey showed that IT managers selected the same top two factors as their employees when asked for reasons causing staff to leave an organisation (pay package 58% and lack of opportunities for career progression 47%), yet they are unable to negotiate the changes necessary to encourage them to stay. This highlights an urgent need for businesses to review their organisational strategies in order to address the frustrations faced by IT staff.


Priorities differ between sectors IT employees in the UK’s three key sectors prioritise career progression over pay when choosing to move to another organisation.

- Engineering and construction (62% career progression vs 41% pay packet) - Manufacturing (47% career progression vs 41% pay packet) - Financial services (48% career progression vs 44% pay packet)

Almost a quarter (24%) of respondents in the IT and Telecoms sector will leave a company due to restrictions on implementing new technologies. Eighty-four percent of professional services and 83% of manufacturers have looked for other roles, compared with 66% of public sector workers. Four in five (81%) public sector workers feel that they have the skills in their organisation to support the digital transformation of public services. However nearly half (47%) believe that their organisation would benefit from having the vision to plot long term digital plans.

As our research points out, what is becoming clear is that that money is not the only driver of employee satisfaction. There are opportunities for forward thinking businesses to encourage skilled IT staff to stay by using technology effectively and innovatively – rather than just through financial means.

2. The innovation gap Innovation is increasingly recognised by organisations as the lynch-pin of success and critical to growth, particularly as the speed of business cycles continues to accelerate. But it is a complex, company-wide process that should be driven by technology and the skills, talent and knowledge of staff. According to the study, this is not being reflected in today’s businesses. Only 19% of IT workers said their organisation has a focus on innovation. The manufacturing industry fared the worst out of all the sectors questioned, with a third (31%) of employees saying their organisations had very little innovation. This compares to only 14% of financial services and professional services industries.


3. Growth and success of the organisation – vision and training With the rapid pace of technological change, few would disagree that a continuous programme of relevant training would be critical for both employees and their organisation. But this study revealed that over two thirds of IT employees (67%) only receive training twice a year, with 11% admitting to have never received training since being in their role. Eighty-eight percent agree that the growth and success of their organisation is reliant on technology and 78% say it is fundamentally reliant on themselves or their team. This clearly shows a disconnect between the importance of IT within the organisation and the amount of investment that is put towards effectively developing the IT team. Nurturing the skills of these teams will allow organisations to exploit their full potential and innovate for tomorrow, but any disconnect between IT workers’ sense of value to the business and what they are getting from senior leadership will cause significant ramifications for the business, with employees looking to take their skillset elsewhere.


4. Attracting digital talent Company reputation is an important factor to employees looking for a role, with 42% citing it as the main reason they join an organisation. Pay package was equally important (42%) followed by physical location (37%) and opportunities for career progression (31%). In terms of where IT professionals aspire to work, the research revealed that half (50%) want to work at large IT firms like EMC, IBM and Microsoft, with 41% selecting digital organisations like Facebook, and just a third (32%) at more disruptive companies such as Uber and other new start-ups. A third (29%) aspire to work at established organisations in their market, such as traditional banks and retailers. Technology is at the heart of business transformation and organisations require a properly resourced IT team to help them navigate new opportunities and threats in the market. With employment of IT professionals forecast to grow at 1.62 percent per year by 2020, businesses must ensure that they offer the most compelling career opportunities in order to retain the best staff, or risk losing as many as three quarters of their IT team in the coming months – something which would have a hugely detrimental impact on any organisation.


5. Recommendations It’s clear from the study that the issue of attracting and particularly retaining talent into IT careers is challenging. Boosting salaries can’t be a crux organisations rely on to retain staff. Instead, organisations need to prioritise the following three key areas to help preserve their future. All three need to happen in lockstep.

RETHINK IT – IT’s legacy is one of being an operational function within the business, called upon when needed to support wider business strategy. As digital has increased in prominence, it’s been more important to define a ‘digital strategy’. But the truth is, digital technology needs to be part of the core outlook and strategy for the business as a whole. So, businesses that successfully transition their IT functions from being a siloed operational discipline and start to use the expertise and insight in that team to actively support the wider business, will come out on top in the war for IT talent. Not only will it open up the expertise of the IT team to the wider business to drive new innovations and efficiencies, but also foster greater collaboration and job satisfaction across IT and wider business teams. REBUILD IT – in order for IT to play a more strategic role, some of the more painful “computer says no” aspects of running IT need to be tackled. Businesses struggle with legacy and complex IT, and that means a veritable army of infrastructure managers are needed just to keep the lights on and keep IT operations up and running. Automation and infrastructure modernisation are crucial to putting IT at the forefront, supporting the business into something resembling the on-demand cloud services we’ve gotten used to in other aspects of our lives is key. And critical to managing this successfully is ensuring continuous development of your teams so they can use the technical skills and mind-sets from years of training in new disciplines, from data science to cloud or business strategy. REBRAND IT – having successfully changed the role of IT in the business and evolved your infrastructure to give those personnel the time and space to work on innovative projects, it then becomes critical that you promote the changes, internally and externally, and create an environment where becoming part of the IT organisation is something people elsewhere in the business and beyond find appealing. It’ll be easier to attract talent into the business if you’ve portrayed IT as a critical strategic function, key to the future success of the business. And doing this effectively in the long term will have long-tail benefits of bringing more people into STEM education and careers in IT, a critical objective the whole industry needs to work towards.