Welcome to B & M Bulletin, produced specifically for users of IT technical services. In this issue:
• Pay rates in the IT industry
• Tech View: What's ITIL about?
• Top 10 Technical Roles of 2008
• Real People, Real Skills – B & M’s Paul Smith
• B & M SkillSource
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Pay rates in the IT industry
Amanda Dunn, B & M's Sales Director, explains how the pay rates of senior IT professionals are being maintained as more junior staff struggle to succeed
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"… the developmental ladder has been broken"
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It is no secret that the pressure on companies to reduce costs has resulted in downward pressure on IT salaries. There have been numerous headlines in the papers quoting salary cuts of 10% or more and depressing news of redundancies across all areas of IT, especially in the financial sector. The revelation that leaders such as Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, Google directors Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page and John Chambers of Cisco are all volunteering to take peppercorn salaries to help save jobs has done little to improve the mood.
However, what is not immediately apparent is that - outside these exceptional cases - not all ranks of IT professional have been hit to the same extent. Recent surveys have shown that the middle and lower IT ranks have been hit hardest by salary cuts, resulting in greater polarity between the highest and lowest paid in the industry.
According to the results of the Silicon.com 2008 Skills Survey (published December 2008), the trend towards offshoring is having a negative impact on the skill level of the UK workforce, and driving junior staff, who should be building their experience, out of the market completely. Almost half (48 per cent) of respondents agree or strongly agree offshoring is undermining the skills set of UK techies.
This trend towards offshoring means that jobs based on the IT tasks traditionally performed by the lower ranks are significantly reduced in the domestic market, so the developmental ladder has been broken, as fewer junior staff are able to find jobs that let them build their skills.
At the same time, the surplus of workers at the lower levels means that their pay rates are falling. These factors are causing skills shortages at the higher levels with the consequent protection of pay rates for those workers.
For access to the best value skilled professionals, contact B & M sales@bmeurope.com.
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What's ITIL about?
Paul Smith, B & M's Technical Manager, looks at the benefits of using contractors with the latest ITIL certification
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Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a methodology for managing IT infrastructure, development and operations. It has its origins in IBM's publication 'A Management System for Information Systems' published in the 1980s and was later developed by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), ending up under the Office of Government Commerce (OGC).
Since this time the methodology has been adopted internationally and has undergone two major revisions with version 3 being published in 2005. The main change in this latest iteration is that while V2 was designed to provide a framework for the process lifecycle and alignment of IT to the business, V3 is also focused on the management of the lifecycle of the services provided by IT and the importance of creating business value - not just executing processes.
According to the official ITIL website, the benefits of employing the methodology include:
- Reduced costs
- Improved IT services through the use of proven best practice processes
- Improved customer satisfaction through a more professional approach to service delivery
- Standards and guidance
- Improved productivity
- Improved use of skills and experience
- Improved delivery of third party services through the specification of ITIL or ISO 2000 as the standard for service delivery in services procurement.
Both versions 2 and 3 include a foundation certificate which covers entry level concepts. In my opinion, the most useful of the core certificates are at the Practitioner (V2) and Intermediate (V3) levels. These latter two qualifications of 10 sub-certificates can be taken together to achieve ITIL Service Manager or ITIL Expert certification. V3 of ITIL also includes the new high-level qualification, ITIL Master.
Statistics from 2004 show that 72% of ITIL take-up was in the UK and North America, but given that V3 is the first version to be published in any language other than English, it is hardly surprising that penetration is highest in English-speaking countries. At first glance, the fact that 58,000 certificates have been issued so far sounds like good news for the industry, until you consider that approximately 90% are only entry-level Foundation Certificates.
Many customers are now adopting ITIL and requiring these additional skills. Those of us who take certification seriously hope that as the value of the standard increases, a greater proportion of higher grade certificates will be attained over the coming year.
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Top 10 Technical Roles of 2008
As the saying goes, the votes have been counted and verified, and we have identified the top 10 technical roles that were demanded of B & M by customers in 2008:
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- Unix System Administrator - predominantly roles covering AIX, HP-UX and Solaris platforms
- Storage Specialist - we have seen key demands for SAN expertise
- WebSphere / WebSphereMQ / WMB Specialist - expertise in WebSphere Application Server, Message Broker and MQ Series have been in high demand
- DB2 Systems Programmer / Database Administrator - particularly those able to offer database design, data warehousing, performance tuning and support
- Technical Project Manager both for projects and interim management
- Systems Test / Operations Analyst - we have seen demand for a broad range of skills and platform knowledge
- MVS Systems Programmer - there is a strong need for traditional skills, often with Sysplex and storage management expertise
- Security Specialist - particularly IBM Security Server (RACF) integration projects
- CICS Systems Programmer - particularly specialists who can deliver upgrades and ongoing management of systems
- ORACLE Specialist / Database Administrator - notably those who can deliver database design, migrations, performance tuning and support on all platforms.
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Real People, Real Skills - B & M's Paul Smith
This month we find out about Technical Manager, Paul Smith
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Following a course in Computer Studies at Hatfield Polytechnic, Paul started work in the north of England with DEC/VAX equipment, providing computer support to staff and students at a college of further education. Here, he got to grips with the more physical aspects of the job such as laying out cable and occasionally drilling holes in walls.
About two years later he left for the south to work at a research laboratory where he moved into the world of IBM mainframes. Paul quickly realised that he was one of the few technicians working in IT who actually had a relevant qualification. Everyone else he met appeared to be a biologist, mathematician, ecologist and, in one case, an ex-plumber!
Subsequently he worked as a freelance Systems Programmer, designing and setting up mainframe computer systems for a variety of clients throughout Europe and in Australia, predominantly working with MVS, RACF and Assembler.
Paul joined B & M in 1997 as Technical Manager, tasked with designing and installing a new Windows-based computer network. Paul is now responsible for advising B & M on technical developments across all IT platforms, providing technical resources to the company and for maintaining and upgrading computer systems and networks.
Paul also has a professional interest in the music business. He is a director of a professional music organisation, works as a live sound engineer and studio recording engineer. He has worked with a variety of professional and amateur musicians, poets and voice-over artists.
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B & M SkillSource
expertise for enterprise systems
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B & M SkillSource is a professional service that delivers experienced specialists for short or long term contracts on projects for large-system enterprise platforms. Our skilled specialists bring new or additional skills, knowledge and expertise to enterprises for projects in areas including: communications, data management; capacity management and systems performance; operating systems management and systems and network security.
We apply stringent best practice standards across all our services, which ensure that they are consistently of the highest quality.
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