Britain takes IT off skills shortage list

1.00pm - By PETER GRIFFIN

Kiwis hoping to combine OE with IT in the UK could soon be out of luck with the British Home Office removing information technology from the country's skills shortage list.

For the last couple of year's high demand for web developers and computer programmers through to IT consultants and contractors, meant British companies could pluck recruits from countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and India.

That arrangement served to accelerate New Zealand's "brain drain" as young Kiwi's headed for London to take up well paying jobs in the IT industry.

But with the high-tech boom of 1999 and 2000 a fading memory of dotcom excess the British Government is making moves to shore up its IT sector. Some 30,000 IT workers were recruited abroad in that two year period.

The Association of Technology Staffing Companies claims about 30 per cent of Britain's IT contractors are out of work.

Importing IT talent will become difficult for tech sector companies as all IT vacancies will have to be advertised in the national and trade press before candidates can be looked for abroad.

That has not gone down well with some specialist IT companies who claim there are still skills shortages in areas of IT that make looking overseas for new recruits essential.