Is the UK IT industry suffering from Brain Drain?

Mario, I’m not a contractor, but basically contractors get paid to live with job insecurity, that’s why they have the higher rates which the money grubbing socialist Labour government just wanted to find a way to tax more as they have done nothing but waste billions of pounds, flood the country and increase taxes anywhere and everywhere and on everything to pay for their incompetence.

Well said Hari. Nearly everyone I know who is in work is paid by the Government. I.e. We are paying for them!

Well done Mark Smith…. You have re-iterated exactly what I have been trying to tell people for a long time……..That being said… there are good and bad in all professions……unfortunately there are too many ‘Monkeys’ joining the ranks of the accountancy profession.
I am a Financial Accountant…. (one of the older ones)… who can use mental arithmetic to add up columns of figures and uses a calculator to just check the figures….. not rely on just using a calculator.
I am also A Systems Accountant having seen the advantages of computerised accounting way back in the early seventies.
(I have also employed and sacked qualified accountants… because they could’nt do what their CV’s said they could do).
with regards to :
“big business want to do deals with massive forigen companies who employ ‘Test King’ certificated monkeys – ask anyone who has worked for a large successful company for sometime that has outsourced services to one of these companies if they think their company has gone down hill as a result”
Again its a yes to that one too …….whilst it seemed to have been financially viable initially (the carrot and the donkey scenario) the costs grow and grow , that in the end it would have been much better to have kept it in-house. ..But of course now they are in the penalty clause trap so they cannot get out of it without that dreaded cost ‘Penalty’

Just as a matter of Interest, lets start a list of Major UK companies that have gone down the outsourcing route. These are the Greedy Companies that have seen fit to dispose of their very loyal local workforce in favour of cheap temporary imports, damaging their communities and acting with total disregard when it comes to the once proud British workforce. I want to know just how widespread this is, I bet there’s not a Company left in the land thats been untouched.

So what do you suggest? Avoiding buying from such companies?
I think that legislation against remote computer work and remote holding of uk records or computerized uk data is the way to go, like Switzerland. That would probably save the country in the long run.

the real truth is that the outsourcing is more about moving the companies profit engine into growth regions. The loss of people in the local area is irrelevant if you consider the region to be “near to death”. In addition the other countries have protectionist rules and dont live the dreamworld that if your nice and work hard you will win. hence to gain entry to the market you have to buy yourself in. in other words create jobs. So big picture…. create an army of people who run within the corporate wheel we have, but with a 3:1 increase and promise them a career path, then give them money to by shiny things and what do you get .. ooh yeh a shiny new, naive middle class who have aspirations. … and so the corporate cycle continues. so what should we do .. fist of all stop whinning about the old world. it was rubbish anyway, i for one will be creating a new business to extract money from the BRIC pack and i suggest you do the same or come work for me. The twee image of a regular Indian citizen has gone , they are more middle england than ever before, proving that the rest of the majority of the world has caught up. we need to get out of our shells and get back to thinking like those back in the old empire. Re: Gordon… shame i think he is the first honest an moral politician and i’m pretty certain davey boy is an idiot and once in the hawks will pull his strings and make it nice for the same corporates mentioned above and as usual squeeze us even further on Tax, a bit like they did with bush. The puppet strings need to be cut… and i hope to god Obama gets it done before Murdock and the Rosthchild crew . the only problem is we dont have an Obama in the uk. so the only options left are a) move to India… i dont think so, b) move to the US … unlikely, c) canada .. have you seen southpark…d) switzerland …. getting crowded e) amsterdam … boring and cold f) Australia … Close to asia and india, good weather , people are realistic and have a sence of fun … what are you waiting for… a Visa! I’m not I’m staying here and will be fighting back, I love this country (and i’m a scot, in surrey) I will be joining or creating a new slightly right of centre political party. Why? Both old guards are broken and the dems are idiots. we will suffer fools for another 5 years regardless who wins. Extreme, but positive measures are required.

Our UK IT guys are reknowned for the quality of their work, the Project gets delivered JUST ONCE, you get EXACTLY what you ask for and the support issues are resolved QUICKLY and EFFICIENTLY. Do a straw poll on what happens now in these outsourced companies and you’ll find projects have to be constantly AMENDED as the original requirements were never completely understood or lost in translation. Costs rarely stay within budget, if they do, functionality is usually PAIRED back to an absolute minimum and the really useful features are never delivered and as for SUPPORT, best not to go there…

Don’t think that avoiding companies that have outsourced is the way to go, as they may find replacement customers elsewhere. Plus they could decide to move to where they can get the customers, which may mean more job losses.

These companies should be encouraged to evaluate what they have done so that they can decide what they should do. Those that have out-sourced should have given themselves the ability to get out of these contracts without penalty before signing the agreement – if they did not, then it is their fault, so they should pay the penalty.

At times, I find the cheapest option is not always the best – so they should have done a thorough investigation before going down any route – and I am convinced that the application / interview procedure is not always the best method of employing people like accountants and IT personnel – as application / interview is too sales oriented (even if all questions are IT / Accounts oriented) – and not everybody is good at marketing themselves in these ways.

One thing I would suggest is to test how good an applicant is by ‘employing’ them for a day to see how well they do (and you can give them some work that they would be expected to do). This may make the selection longer, but you may find that you can better weed out those who are less able to do the work (unless they get help from somebody else on how to do the work).

Outsourcing companies always achieve the same result – just look at UK government IT: ages over time; massively over budget; and nowhere near adequate. The British Government, by malicious design or obscene idiocy, pour billions of tax payer pounds and future taxpayer debt into the outsource companies.

The government money is a huge subsidy that allows the out sourcr companies to win contracts in the private sector with loss leading initial project budgets.

This way the British government not only does us, its citizens, no favours but actually works against us.

@ Mark have you ever worked outside UK? I guessed not.
How I do calculate the percentage? Simple, what I get net from the gross. Overall taxes never exceed 35%. Included the higher band. Source: charted accountant. Permanent jobs in UK.
Other countries as examples:
In Italy you have several bands and taxes: 23% irpef, 4,25% irap, 18% inps, + add. reg + add comunale Bottom line, if you lucky, you pay only 45-50% in taxes of your gross.
In Holland, I never understood the bands though, a dutch resident pays 55% taxes.
In France you pay average 45-48% in taxes
And the best for last Denmark! You pay up to 65% taxes. Hippie!
Happy now?
Anyway we are off topic. The topic is “Brain Drain”
I listen and read news in 4 (four) languages: English, French, Italian & Spanish and I follow 2 more in Dutch and German. Believe me when I say that all those Counties have the same “Brain Drain” headlines.
Every nation is blaming the so called “brains” leaving their country for better prospect.
My question is “For which County of which Planet they have left for?”

Marco, does this reflect direct vs indirect taxation? In the UK there is also a lot of tax on everything you try to spend your net salary on so there are lots of stealth taxes that get you along with high living costs. Anyway, this is turning in to a tax debate. Basically less tax is better, that’s all there is too it.

The real “Brain Drain” that is occurring is that the worst people are massively out breeding the best people. That is the single biggest problem on the planet at the moment, even more than environmental changes because the proliferation of the worst people will affect the future of the environment and all future decisions and actions, as well as the more obvious topics of crime, productivity, overpopulation and shortage of talent to create solutions for problems that require intelligence… oh, like the environment. Europeans descended people are basically finished, they just don’t know it yet, it’s like waiting to die of the cancer you don’t know you have yet but will finish you off by the age of 30-35.
That’s actually quite a brilliant analogy, because cancer cells multiply faster than normal cells and kill the whole organism eventually, which is exactly what will happen in the future. It’s not a question of “if”, it’s a question of “how long”… and what’s worse is we can’t discuss the real issues or even hope to solve it under the current system.
I think by comparison a few people like my colleague migrating to New Zealand is the least of our problems.

@Hari : You have hit the nail on the head mate. I’m sitting in an internet cafe at the moment listening to a woman who is not from the UK, shouting down the phone to her relations; everyone in the large cafe is listening; they dont want too, but she hasn’t got the brains to close the door to the booth or speak more quietly, everyone is too scared to tell her to shut up and are looking at each other like they want to get out of this country as quickly as possible. The numpty on the phone will most likely become a government adviser soon…

I myself am looking at going abroad again as I think the UK is doomed; sorry to say it – old religious/regional racism and the desire to boost share prices no matter what e.g. by outsourcing, paying peanuts for monkeys or because of government policy…

The brains have headed to Asia and are laughing all the way to the banks (which they have joined out there) sorry to say it but I’m off too…

Jon, your comment, ‘Companies should be encouraged to evaluate what they have done’ i.e. ‘were we right to have gone for Outsourcing?
I don’t know of any Department Head or IT Director that would ever admit to getting it wrong after Outsourcing, its a very harsh lesson that each company seems to have to learn for themselves.

Am I against our Outsourcing Colleagues? No, I have every respect for them, but OUR IT brains aren’t going abroad, they’re driving taxi cabs!

I think that driving a lorry is a much better job than doing IT (I used to work in a logistics company). HGV1 license holders are reasonably well paid, have pretty much guaranteed 100% employment, can work as much or as little as they want and companies are reluctant to ever fire them unless they kill somebody because the lorry drivers can walk in to another new job the same day… some of them get away with just short of murder.
So if you take in to account that you are paid for a proportion of your time sitting around waiting for jobs or people to load/unload lorries, reading the newspaper and drinking cups of tea, it’s so much less stressful than doing IT.
Coupled with guaranteed employment, transferable skills to most countries and not having to kill yourself early like in IT, I do consider it a good fallback career.

@Hari : I’m a specialist in IT/Finance from London so I don’t agree; but I understand where you are coming from…

I am quite happy for the jobs to go abroad as long as I can follow. I spent my first twenty years in the English provinces then another 20 in or around London.

I’ve had enough of slum dwelling (it isn’t the money it’s the yobbish attitude of Londoners: noisy, slovenly and aggressive), I want to live somewhere with people who have enough self respect to not tolerate yobbery.

As I see it that means giving up the “British Way of Life”.

Mark, it sounds like you want to be right wing to straighten out yobs or something and return England to decades gone by? (which I can totally understand where you are coming from…)
Regarding emigrating with the jobs, remember that those jobs are going offshore in order for the workers getting those jobs to be paid less, so you would also be paid less and achieve a much lower quality of life as a result in those offshore locations.

@ Hari

I agree 100% what you said. My builder converted garage to simple room and took 10 days for job. I had paid him £4500. Will any IT guy or CCIE or Project Manager get that amount in 10 days?

Well, IT guys in reality are poorest in many ways. I am not joking at all. Tell me how many of you spent fortune? On books, training courses, equipment, study time, overtime without pay and list goes on. You might have read countless pages since you started IT career. Some of you might have studied more then any uni student and still can’t be recognized in industry. We as IT are most miserable then Taxi, tube, bus driver and earn worst than those people. Simply if you are Taxi driver making min £200 each day x25 day=£5,000 per month and 50,000 per year. Look at the salaries for IT roles. Some of them are demand long list of skills and offering insulting salaries. Recruitment agencies are bunch of IT pimps and full of their own greed. We do need IT Union who can look after IT workforces. Look Royal Mail, Fire-fighters, Tube drivers or any union. We are the most stupid and fragmented piece of workforce in any industry.

There already is an IT Union. It’s called Solidarity and it’s a union for every trade and occupation that’s politically neutral (does not support the Labour Party like most other unions do); patriotic; puts the British worker first; and is vehemently opposed to outsourcing and offshoring jobs to low wage countries. I recommend that more IT workers get involved as it may well save your job in the future.

http://www.solidaritytradeunion.com

Sorry 60,000 per year for cabi I meant

i am a networkengineer iam coplted fr a course name ccna ccnp mcse

Funny “Be-Realist” should mention tube drivers. A few years ago tube drivers were planning to strike over pay. A friend of mine worked in IT at a bank, he was a permie and had to do unpaid overtime and unpaid out-of-hours support, he was livid to find the tube drivers got more for their basic 35 hour week (before shift allowances and overtime) than he made at a bank. I was a contractor there and could not recommend any course of action to improve his lot, but he eventually worked it out for himself.

I don’t think unionisation is the solution, but we could learn from the unions. One thing that is important is an open market – it is what allows capitalism to work. Published prices for traded equities, commodities et c. were the key features of the original bourses. The unions made sure workers knew the going rate for a job. People in IT are astonishingly unwilling to discuss the going rate for a role or any other compensation that accompanies extra commitment.

Permies may well earn less than tube drivers, but they don’t know the going rate until they push their luck. Most contractors I spoke to about publishing a going rate said they would, if they knew their competitors rate, set their own rate at slightly under the rate they knew of. Not at the going rate, but slightly under and that was at a time of boom.

Hari, regarding emigrating to follow the jobs: Many jobs do go to lower cost economies, but the lower wages go further. Life near Prague is quite good and a trivial income can bring a good standard of living, a friend of mine is there and says it works out quite well until he comes back to the UK and has little “spending power”. I have a Czech friend (in his twenties, about the same age I was when I came here) who finds London a much more exciting and rewarding place than Prague.

I guess my real problem with living in the UK is I’m bored with it and too old for London. When I used to come back from overseas offices and even holidays I used to feel pleased to be back, but for about ten years I have had that “sand in my shoes” feeling of wishing I could find a way to stay and work where ever I have just been (even France).

@Mark

It is a fact that IT salaries are joke or insult nowadays when you compare with other professions. I give you another simple example of 2nd Line support role. 10-14 year ago same role was going for 24-25K and even today its same or may be less. I think we need reality check of last 20 years of data about Salaries and Contract rates, Inflation, taxation and net average income. I am 100% confident that our salaries or rates are going down even more responsibilities then past. Don’t lecture me about fake recession or economical down turn or supply demand bull s**t. If it is real recession then prices of all items should also be decreased instead of climb up and rip poor people savings. Secondly people are getting less pays so why those price should be increased?

It simply excuse made for us to accept any salary to support/feed our families and big saving for elite class unless you become part of same game. Those fat cats are still Bonuses even after getting Govt. bail out money, which is money of tax payers and our money. As you know, still job cuts and Bonuses for those who are cutting jobs instead of creating new jobs. Don’t be fool and try to be honest and realistic to yourself. If you are Hiring Manager today and taking interview of new employee, if you don’t offer him realistic salary then you might be looking for job tomorrow. So what salary or rates would you expect? Same you offered to your employee when you were interviewing few months back??? Ask yourself and be fair. Try to Educate HR and Senior Management before most people quite IT for other professions.

Hi,
For the ones interested, on Friday 23 October in Brussels a book was presented about this subject. As you see Brain Drain is not a localized and solely UK problem. It seems that Brain Drain is caused mainly by lack of “job” possibility rather than better wages.
The below link seems to be in Italian language only, sorry for my Anglophone friends.

http://fugadeitalenti.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/la-fuga-dei-talenti-a-bruxelles/

I agree that part of the problem is the lack of “job” possibility – which is why some people are leaving the industry. Can also accept that it is not just a UK problem, as creating a lack of “job” possibility is easier than creating a good “job” possibility. This is why I consider that potential employers should be considering how they select the successful candidates more.

I also think that there could also be a problem with certain “employment agencies” aiming to send persons who are more likely to change roles – as they may get another request to supply more applicants when that person leaves for a different role – which benefits them more (hence the import of personnel from abroad rather than employing local – with them ignoring local ability).

I haven’t had a single interview for at least 15 months – even though my CV is available online (which I update regularly) and apply for several roles every week!

@Mark:
Don’t even speak to me about Prague. I have a czech spouse and go there every year for nearly a decade so I know a thing or to about that place. It’s full of yanks which has screwed people wanting to buy there and the cost of living is proportionally higher when compared to wages otherwise I’d be living there right now. I just hope for the love of god they never get immigration there, the czechs are too good and breed too little to stand any chance of surviving that. There’s only 10M of them ffs…
@ unnikrishnan:
lol, what a funny piss-take of a typical IT-wannabe monkey…
@ Be-Realist:
You are correct, some people at the top are trying to push wages down and prices up. It only benefits the very, very rich who collect on that shifting scale as they hold most of the cards. I personally wish that a lot of people would leave IT just to teach the industry a lesson….

@Jon Jarvis
There are two truths in here, how it is true that a coin has two sides:
1) Agencies
2) Employers
but there the layer in between is called the “job seekers”.
I am with you that the some Agency are a scum as well as unprofessional and ignorant. But this applies to Employers I promised you.
Bottom line is that we are “expendable” a tissue to be binned after used.
It seems absurd but in order to survive we have to use the only weapon at our disposal “best offer”. We have sell ourselves to the best bidder, so people do not label us “Brain Drain” when we leave the country.

I’m not sure being labelled “brain drain” is an insult, the term brain drain refers tot he fact people are leaving the country to attain a better living abroad. To be honest being labelled as brain drain at least acknowledges my brain! The UK management and employers need to learn the value of their engineers, is the bottom line fact.

Rob, 100% agree. One of the problems is that instead of promoting the guys that really know their stuff and have a solid engineering/computer engineering foundation, the UK has this penchant for promoting lightweights. Those guys/girls that can talk the talk at a general level, i.e. at management level, but have little understanding beneath that. Hence management never really get a true picture of what’s really going on. The good engineers stay in their engineering role until retirement and nobodies been trained up in the meantime to replace them.

Never before have I seen such whining. The world changed around you. Get over it. Rates have gone done because supply has gone up. India churns out more decent developers each year than we *have* and they’re all available across a wire instantaneously. The solution is to give up and do something else.

Wow Kloot, concisely put. I’ve tried to tell people to ditch IT and use their unemployment as the opportunity to retrain in something else but they all give the same answer about not now they have spent so long building their skills… it’s gambling fever I think… you lose money in the casino but you have to keep playing because you’re bound to win the next time…

Wow, you give up quickly. You obviously haven’t invested enough years in your skills for it to matter. I’m glad the British don’t make a habit of giving up, the World would be a very different place if they did…

Hey PO, was that aimed at me? I’m actually a highly skilled senior engineer so this doesn’t apply to me and I’ve never been made redundant either… The British gave up on keeping their country nice about 40 years ago…

Guys, I’m sure the likes of Hexaware, NIIT and all of the other countless outsourcing companies thank you for your inspiring comments.

Ummm, I wonder if Kloot and Hari have a vested interest in what they spout ?

Me personally, no, I’m not in the job market anyway having not long ago switched to a much better paid job but it does grate me to see IT in this state and also the stupidity of so many people to not consider retraining. If I could go back and start again I’d do something else. If you’re out of work for more than 3-6 months and don’t retrain, you’re a mug. Besides, most people in IT don’t belong anyway, they’re not alpha geeks back to school days, they’re just average people and hangers on which doesn’t help any of the other genuine geeks out there get noticed in the floods of CVs.
The only way developed countries can keep some IT is by either innovating to stay ahead of the curve (but this is a losing battle because it will simply be duplicated offshore for less money quite quickly now) or to pass laws prohibiting the transfer of data outside of their countries, so UK data stays within UK territories and therefore so too will it’s computer systems and IT jobs. I believe Switzerland works like that so I am told and I think it’s an excellent idea to solve the problem of the dying UK IT market…
C’mon people, get a clue…

To clarify this point: RE-TRAIN IN SOMETHING ELSE NON-IT.

@Kloot

I’m curious, what do you suggest that the countries manufacturing and R&D engineers do now? Given that these are the industries affected, which industries do you feel are growth opportunities in the UK. Given that any industry you choose must redress the trade deficit and pay for the large public sector we currently support.

I have spent over 20 years building my IT skills – and for what? Spend the rest of my life on Benefit just because there is no real demand within the IT Field? I have been looking for a new IT role for more than 2 years without success. Anybody who claims that people like me give up quickly are really very ignorant, as there are people like me who are having to consider leaving IT just because IT does not want persons like myself – and I tried to keep up while the world changed – think that there is plenty of whining both sides and no real action! I say give more action rather than blame each other for whining – if that means loss of people to IT, then it means losing them (unless IT starts acting like it wants them to stay by actually employing these people)

This isn’t about whinging or whining, its about the UK keeping its native IT skills. The way its going, it simply wont have any. Only then will you see the real cost of outsourcing as the UK is held to ransom

Hari, your reaction tells me that your wouldn’t be willing to give up your job and do something else, why should everybody else. There are many very highly skilled guys being made redundant in the UK for one reason only, they aren’t as cheap to employ as those supplied by outsourcing companies. Its not about how good you are anymore, its about how cheap you can be.

PO, I hope never to need to be cheap. I got a large salary raise not long ago by switching jobs (2 higher offers within a few days actually so I took the higher one). I understand what you are saying and it is very unfortunately, but the truth is as IT shrinks some people have to go. The earlier they realize it the better for them and the better for the IT industry, it’s over far too over saturated. I personally don’t need to leave, but if I was in a position to reconsider my options, I would, even after the ridiculous amount of years it’s taken me to get to this point, if I couldn’t get back on the horse. Ironically, I think the longer one is unemployed, the harder it is to get back on as well because employers don’t take a positive view of that either (have recently been hiring myself I know).

The interesting point is that the current unemployment will be the tip of the iceberg if industry does not start to recover. All the folks in public sector jobs are paid for by the taxes paid by the private sector. The private sector collapses, then so to will the public sector, it will just be a few months behind. So there really is not a pretty end to this.

The idea of containing technology within the borders of the UK does have merit, although there are a lot of problems with it too as other countries respond in type. I’m not sure if it’s the cynic in me, but how could you police the commercial sector in the UK? The spivs who sell the IP to the highest bidder are unlikely to report their activities when they can so easily hide the transfer. More interesting would be to ensure UK academic research had to be developed to market within the UK, this would be more easily policed and also concentrate on the bleeding edge technology. It’s amazing how many UK inventions are immediatlty exported to other countries. The UK tax payer paid for the invention/research, but the jobs created by the activity are always given away. This has a lot to do with the UK finance industry being so reticent to invest in British industry. However, if the only way they could cash in on the research was to have it manufactured for the first 10 years in the UK…. That might change it.

As to talking about folks who have been out for 6 months being past it and requiring retraining, blow it out your….. It’s been common practice for contractors to take a year off for as long as I can remember in bad times. These are the folks who really save the permies from doom as they get paid well in the good times and NOTHING in the bad times, no redundancy payouts, no garden leave, nothing at very short notice. Then at the end of the downturn when you are scared to take on another permie but are saturated in work, over the hill to your rescue they come. These experts in their fields, alpha geeks of numerous skillsets, business men, consultants… They take more than 6 months off at a time regularly, so much as I do agree there is an over supply of IT skills, retraining for the sake of it seems stupid.

Rob you misunderstood. I don’t mean IT retraining (that could potentially be a waste of money) I’m talking about retraining for other jobs to get back in to stable non-IT work. I’ve known people only who are out of work for month and years before they struggle back on to the saddle. It’s silly when they could do something else. I had a health screen the other day, the guy was a young guy in his 30s, he used to be a Network Manager, MCSE etc, and retrained to do that instead, so it can be done. He cited health and quality of life reasons and I think he was right. Not everyone belongs in IT, in fact, most of the people I’ve met don’t belong.

Thats it, I’ve had my say! Best of luck to all in IT.

I agree that there may be an over supply of certain IT skills, and it is rather stupid to retrain persons in those areas where there is an over supply of IT skills.
I have been unemployed for over 2 years now (after 22 years in the same role), and it seems like I am ignored in just some areas (probably due to an over supply in those areas). This does not mean that I am ignored in all areas, and have had some interest from some areas around the second anniversary of being made redundant.
I personally do not mind taking a pay cut (compared to my last perm role) just to get back into the jobs market – and I would accept retraining into an area where the persons are required.
Also, there is something called a ‘Recruitment Subsidy’ – which is designed to reward the employer of somebody who has been unemployed for at least 6 months – within certain conditions (min 16 hours per week for 26 weeks). Not sure, but have heard that there may also be help with the training for these persons as well – that is, if these persons require the training (some people may be able to pick up current practices relatively easily without training – even after a long period of unemployment).
I would have probably stayed ’till retirement in my last role if I had not been made redundant – and you could not say that I needed to be sent on a course to keep me up to date – as I started using HTML and Javascript before going on a Dreamweaver course (there certainly was no HTML when I did my HND between 1982 and 1984 – I just go the info out of a book).
If you want to know more about the recruitment subsidy and similar benefits, Job Centre Plus may help with this kind of thing.

These are all juts symptoms of a very real problem facing the UK today. I have constantly certified myself over the years to stay ahead of the game as it were. HND Hons Degree, Masters, and specialist certification, but IT is the only profession, unjustified in my view, which requires people to constantly chase bits of paper at a huge personal cost just to stay in a job. There are easier ways to make money, work for the NHS, local government, or emigrate to Oz. There is plenty of IT work there and well paid too! Let’s not forget though where the blame for this lies. Cast your vote very carefully at the next election. This government had a chance to regulate the banks, but they showed no strength of resolve. And of course the Tories will fleece you dry to line their own pockets. Get them out, stop outrageous public sector spending, curb immigration and stop outsourcing (consumers would need to drive this) – it’s the only way to protect and invest in British industry. Whoever has that as a set of policies gets my vote, but I fear England will vote Tory and that will have the Scots running into the ballot box to vote SNP and a subsequent breakup of the Union will be the result? I don’t’ think it can get any worse than that. We are heading straight toward an EU super state we didn’t ask for and guess what – they have the advantage over us because although the language of business is English, other EU countries can discriminate against you because you are not fluent in their language. No matter where you look for comfort you have to face up to the reality that the banks have turned us over big time and now we are all paying for it for the rest of our lives. Think about it – that is your kids University place up the swany! Now they have us just where they want us. Other countries have had revolutions for less, but not old blighty….because we know our place don’t we!

Hey honestJoe….your some fair points but mainly talking oot yer erse! The uk has the most highly qualified burger sellers in the whole of the world. The south is generally better, but if you live in that outpost called Scotland your f*****. There is very little work in Scotland….THAT IS WHY YOU ARE IN SURREY!!! Out sourcing is about profit, not a adverse reaction about propping up failing industries. By your logic, slave trading was a good idea! Oh I forgot you are Scottish and we Scots kinda played a major role in it. Time for a new government I think to sort out slackers, immigration, build a proper economic systems which is less exploitative measures and stop taxing the UK citizens to death. My Uncles and grand parents fought a war to keep this country together and safe form invasion and fascist ideologies. Look at it now..Its a shambles and you know it. The emigration figures speak for themselves and hari is right the jeds are breeding and demanding state support without lifting a finger. I have nothing against economic migrants and I think our Polish cousins have been treated very badly by some our our citizens. As soon as there is a level plying field and I can go to India on the next bus….I may give it a go. But you know what …the won’t let us in…and when they do ..you become the one who is discriminated against. Wake up and go out more and get a balanced view of things. Man…Surrey must be smelling of roses.

Leaving the UK is the obvious thing to do if you can, there are many reasons, nto all of it to do with the IT market…
a) With the UK government leading the charge to dispose of work as an activity carried out in the UK (just look at the amount of tax payers money spent abroad on everything from the NHS computer system to ministerial BMW’s and Mercedes council trucks), The emplyoment statistics in the UK are appaling, less han 80% of working age people are actually employed, less than 30% are employed full time in private industry. This statistic (from the ONS by the way) hasn’t really changed very much in the last decade or so.
b) Given the small number of people employed producing wealth compared to the number being supported the taxes in the UK are appalingly high. Now some will say ‘well income tax in …. is higher, but of course they (luckily for the government of the day) forget the other taxes – fuel, VAT, duties on this that and the other, BBC licence fee, car tax, council tax, fees to use the facilities you have already paid for (nhs car parks, council sports centres, town centre car parks….. the list is endless), and of course the silent tax of the police/councils and their endless cameras enabling them to fine you for everything and anything.
c) The population per square foot in the UK is far too high thanks to our generous benefits system attracting people from all over the world, this creates demand for housing that makes our housing overly expensive.
d) The lack of regulation of the supermarket and petrol cartels that enables these entities to charge an ever increasing profit margin on the products while lowering standards and paying producers ever less.
e) The terrible statistics of wealth imbalance where a guy can sink a high street bank and then get millions of ‘pension’ funded by the few that are working for ever diminishing wages.
f) The dimminishing wages in the industry – I have recently seen a full time job requireing a Dr and 10 or so years of experience for ‘up to 25k’, even the offers I have been receiving lately represent between 20 and 25% LESS than I was earning 2 years back – given the pay rises at the top, the ever increasing costs, of course I am going to look abroad when faced with that.

The problem is that the Conservatives who might get in next time round are just as incapable as Labour, the policies are pretty much identical and neither party puts Britain above the best way to swindle their expenses and get on the ‘international power trip’ band wagon which will ensure them a very wealthy lifestyle for ever more…

Most of the above could be changed – but only if some of the population think before they vote and do soemthing radical – vote for someone who isn’t part of a main stream party and gives a fig about the country. As most people won’t change and the country will continue its post 1945 decline will the last one out switch off the light?

Well said Dave Hitchman. Life is far too short to try and change this UK political system; the morons who know nothing about politics keep voting in the worst people ever and you know what…those in power know it and they also know there is nothing we can do about it; that is why we have seen such blatant misuse of public funds, without judicial consequences. I mean look that Cameron bloke – he knows he has already won the election….Tell you what, try theft yourself and see where it gets you, approach your boss and tell him you need a rise…see where it gets you? Oh…sorry, I forgot I am not am elected MP. Add to that our democratic rights that have already been given away to the Eurocrats & back-door immigration without control mechanisms is way out of control & you have a very severe problem. As you say Dave, Last out switch off the light? now if only I could sell my house……

Ah well, I loved living in the UK and used to feel my spirits soar at the end of a foreign visit or holiday as I neared England, but a decade ago I was offered business funding somewhere else and although I didn’t take it over the years I became less enamored of the UK. I spent a few years bad mouthing the UK and saying I wished I’d got out.

I put my money where my mouth was and got out of the UK. I am currently in a polite, friendly and relaxed city. All the money saved in taxes goes on accommodation, so I’m not richer, just happier. I had the shock of my life when talking to a colleague who lives in France, where housing is cheaper, she said “In France we get a tax allowance as a couple that means we pay less tax than in London”. So, the UK all in rate of taxation is not actually less than in France and in France one gets so much more for one’s tax.

How do I feel now that I’ve tried a different country? I want to shake the UK dust off my shoes and I hope I never have to go back.

Don’t worry about turning the lights off – they’ll all go out when the UK can’t pay for its energy imports.

Really great article u got here. It’d be just great to read a bit more about that topic. Thnx for sharing such material.

Well, it can’t be denied that the last year and a half was pretty tough for IT and Digital people in the UK. However, any recruiter is going to tell you that the market is improving.
Check out a very up-to-date market report which shows a contrary situation, i.e. that the revival in some IT sectors is so significant, that employers are more and more eager to start hiring non-UK based candidates to fill some skill gaps
http://www.finditjobintheuk.com/FreeReport2010

Pity they still aren’t prepared to hire UK based Candidates!

Indeed. Still, when was the last time you met a decent candidate among the swarms of untalented uk IT grads? UK talent is rotting from the ground up. It doesn’t help that the worst people are massively outbreeding the best, so employers have to get talent from where they can find it. G

Indeed. Still, when was the last time you met a great candidate among the swarms of untalented uk IT grads? UK talent is rotting from the ground up, the direct result of the decline in quality of the gene pool due to the significant imbalance of breeding in low vs high potential humans.

I find that most of the problem is how they search. I find that the Application / Interview may favour those who are good at selling themselves. The result is that it favours those who have talent at sales, but this talent may not extend to IT. The result being a decline in quality due to talent in sales being placed before talent in IT. Hence, I consider improvements within the selection procedure need to be made so that talent in IT is favoured more than a talent in sales. Without these improvements, even selected non-UK based candidates will include those who do not have talent in IT.

We’re hiring right now and we’ve found the opposite. Great CVs, we get all excited, get them in for interview and find they have a great ability to talk well etc but when I give them technical questions they fall down. So “sales” doesn’t fly here!

You claim that sales do not fly. The best sales personnel will make themselves sound good, even with the technical questions. Evidence of this is the employment of persons who obviously are not all that good at the role. It is your claim that the persons selected are not sales personnel that does not get off the ground.

I doubt that you have fully checked your claim, you have just been lucky with your selections. One day you will employ somebody who is unsuitable for the role.

Do you know how many interviews we’ve been through here in the last few weeks for people with better CVs than mine and who speak well on the phone, my manager was saying each time “I have a good feeling about this one” from the phone interview and then they come in and fail my technical questions and then we’re so disappointed coming out of the interview and the lack of talent out there. My manager has stopped saying he has a good feeling now… now we’re saying “where the heck do we get DECENT people from?”. So they were good at sales, but they didn’t make it here. Maybe elsewhere they’ll get something…
Speaking of people unsuitable for the role, we’ve hired people who weren’t that great out of necessity/desperation but we knew we were making compromises due to our selection process but we had no choice.

I’m not convinced. Whenever ’sales’ people get these jobs it’s down to organisation-wide incompetence; ’sales’ doesn’t answer ‘describe the key difference between a C function pointer and a C# delegate’.

Compare and contrast: an interview at a large company, lots of government contracts, in Private Eye a lot for their uselessness, name starts with a C. The interview wasn’t off to a good start, I got what should have been an obvious address wrong and turned up late. Never mind… I’m asked the question “what do you know about database indexing”?

Now, I’m expecting this to be a reasonably high level question and not ever having looked at what happens behind the scenes I decide to wing it and start vocally speculating about what data structures might be used for best effieciency.

No, wrong answer. He was asking if I even knew what an index was from a database use perspective, didn’t have a clue what a binary tree was (I’m serious, I asked directly). At this point he decides that because he hasn’t a clue what I’m on about that I’m talking gibberish; end of interview.

It’s in that kind of from-the-top incompetent environment that idiots will hire more idiots because, especially at the low levels, anyone competent’s going to have their job within the year.

Anyway, I know who’s been edging this new graduate out of jobs the last year because I’ve had very good feedback but there are people with experience who’re desperate enough that they’re going for the same jobs as me.

I take it you’re a graduate, Paul? I sympathize, I truly do, it was near on impossible to get my start and that was years ago, competition has only gotten worse. Face it, the market is saturated and it’s not going to get any better so unless you fancy working for peanuts you’d be better of getting a less obvious job in another field.