[March 14, 2006]

working in outsourcing Outsourcing suppliers increase demand for skilled IT staff with management skills

(Computer Weekly Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
Bill Goodwin

bill.goodwin@rbi.co.uk

Demand from the big outsourcing suppliers for experienced, qualified IT staff with management skills has risen over the past year.

Perot Systems and EDS are among the firms recruiting heavily after winning large contracts, while others, such as Accenture and Capgemini, are hiring at a slower pace, recruitment agencies reported this week.

Much of the demand is for senior IT staff with the skills and experience needed to take over the running of major projects, said Paul Smith, managing director for offshore software at recruitment firm Harvey Nash.

"Firms are looking for people with professional qualifications, people with a very strong programme management background. People who have worked and managed similar sized projects, with strong client relationship skills, and obviously people management," he said.

Traditional technical jobs have been replaced by jobs that require both the technical knowledge and management skills, said Andy Lord, director of ReThink Recruitment. Demand for technical architects is particularly strong, he said.

"A technical architect used to be someone who lived in the back room and was very introverted and technology focused from concept to delivery. They now lead the technology team in the implementation and they are much more customer focused."

The major outsourcing suppliers are demanding similar technical skills - a mixture of Unix, Windows and mainframe skills, creating pressure that is pushing up salary rates, said Lord.

"Firms like BT, Fujitsu, CSC, Capgemini and EDS are all looking for the same skills. It has hiked the price of the individual and it has become quite a transient market. People are being headhunted and offered 10,000 or 15,000 more than their existing salaries," he said.

Richard Herring, director at Volt Europe, said that experienced project managers who have gained additional qualifications were being snapped up by the outsourcing specialists.

"The best mix is where you have a career project manager who has invested in their career," he said. "They have combined project management and project control methodologies such as Prince with a quality of service qualification such as ITIL."

Matt Staley, recruitment services manager at Fujitsu Services, said the firm had 300 IT vacancies. The company is looking for senior management consultants who are business-focused rather than technology-focused, project managers, and test and validation specialists.

"We are doing an awful lot of recruiting on the back of some successes we have had over the past two years. We literally have hundreds of vacancies. Although we are filling vacancies quickly, the demand is huge," he said.

Robert Morgan, director of outsourcing consultancy Morgan Chambers, estimated that demand for IT staff from the outsourcing specialists is up 5% this year overall. But it is concentrated in large deals, he said.

"Honest to goodness solid service delivery people, particularly when it comes to desktops - companies are always looking for those people. Really good service delivery people are hard to find."

Outsourcing suppliers steer away from large staff transfers

Outsourcing suppliers are beginning to shy away from deals that involve the transfer of large numbers of IT staff from businesses and public sector bodies, according to Martyn Hart, chairman of the National Outsourcing Association.

The major outsourcing suppliers now have the staff that they need in place and have grown wise to businesses that use outsourcing as a way of offloading staff with out-of-date skills.

"The days when they absorbed 800, 1,000 or 2,000 staff are over," Hart said.

Nevertheless, working for an outsourcing supplier can allow IT professionals to expand their knowledge and skills, perhaps as a stepping stone to becoming an IT director, he said.

"If you have skills in the area the outsourcing company wants to work in, you probably have a much better opportunity with an outsourcer than your own company. Companies outsource business when it is not core business. At an outsourcer you become part of the core."

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