Skills

Qualifications held

Older IT specialists are notably less qualified than others working in IT positions, and in 2023 whilst 67% of those aged 50+ working in IT jobs were thought to hold some form of HE qualification, the figure for those under 50 was ten percentage points higher (77%). Within the wider workforce too, younger workers were found more likely to hold some form of HE qualification – the difference again being ten percentage points (with comparison figures of 44% and 54% respectively for those holding HE qualifications).

Level of educational attainment amongst IT specialists (2023)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

IT specialists aged 50+ are also less likely to hold a degree in an IT-related discipline than those of a younger age working in such occupations, and in 2023, just 9% were thought to have either a higher or undergraduate computing degree compared with 13% of IT specialists aged 16-49.

IT specialists holding computing degrees (2023)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

Skills development

Despite the arguably high skill/knowledge requirements associated with their work, IT specialists as a whole in the UK are not more likely than other workers to receive job-related education/training and, on average throughout 2023, 26% of IT specialists/all workers stated that they had received some form of job-related education/training in the previous 13 weeks compared with 27% of workers as a whole.

The incidence of job-related education/training was lower amongst older workers – 25% of which received education/training during the previous 13 weeks, and this was also true amongst those holding IT positions (25% of IT specialists aged 50 and above versus 27% of those aged 16-49).

Job-related education / training in the past 13 weeks (2023)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

Skills sourcing

As with other employees, the most common identifiable means of IT specialists ^[4] securing a job (where stated and during the 2019-23 period) was by ‘replying to an advertisement’ (33% of those that had been with their employer for less than one year stating they had secured work in this manner), and this was true for both older and younger IT specialists (23% and 35% respectively).
The next most common means of older IT specialists securing a job was via a private employment agency/business and then through contacts already working with the employer (20% and 18% respectively) and for each of these routes older IT specialists were more likely to have secured work in this way than their younger counterparts (with comparison figures of 16% and 15% respectively for those aged 16-49).
Conversely, the proportion of older IT specialists gaining work via direct application was notably lower than that recorded by younger workers in IT positions (i.e. 12% vs 17%) and though this was also true for older workers more generally, the difference in behaviour was less pronounced (i.e. 14% of older workers finding work in this way compared with 19% of those from younger age groups during the 2019-23 period).

Means of finding work amongst IT specialists (2019-2023)

Source: Analysis of ONS Quarterly Labour Force Survey by BCS

^[4] Employees / people on government schemes who have been with their current employer for less than one year / 12 months prior to being interviewed for the LFS.