Global industry
How to address the telecom skills gap
A Knowledge Network Article by Tim Wright, Director of Technology at The Institute Of Telecommunications Professionals.
Wednesday 07 September 2016
Our industry is facing unprecedented change driven largely by technology which is stimulating end users to demand more of less and to have it all, right now! Processing power, high speed broadband and mobile connectivity, low-cost storage – glued together with software controlled by apps – are the technology drivers. But are there the people with the right skills to deliver these expectations?
Looking first at some of the numbers. In 2014, some 7.5m people across the EU were ICT professionals - that's 3.4% of the total EU workforce - growing on average by 1.2% year-on-year [e-Skills in Europe whitepaper<http://goo.gl/y7U8gg>]. Half of these people work in the ICT sector itself with the rest in the ICT activities of other sectors. The UK had 22% of the EU's ICT professionals – the highest workforce of any EU country. However, the gap between the number of jobs and the demand potential is increasing from a gap of 470,000 in 2016 to 750,000 by 2020. Although a significant number of these vacancies are in Germany, the relatively low graduate figures for the UK suggest that the problem of skills shortages will be severely felt by the UK. The UK could be facing an ICT skills shortage of 160,000 by 2020.
The Daily Telegraph reported (quoting the Adzuna search engine for job ads) that in February 2015 there were over 105,000 jobs advertised in the IT sector in the UK – more than any other sector. Obviously when it comes to telecommunications sector itself, the numbers are smaller – Adzuna is currently listing 6,700 job adverts in telecoms, nearly a third of which are in London, across a wide range of telecoms disciplines.
Although we can feel reassured that there is expected to be an ongoing and increasing number of job vacancies in the telecommunications sector, that is only part of the story … it's the changing nature of the skills that is important brought about by the increasing overlap between IT and telecoms skills. The technical areas where there will be a growth in the demand for skills include mobile, cloud, apps, big data, cyber security, software-defined networking and Internet of things. These technology areas are not separate but are converging.
Advances in computing processing power mean that we can now implement many network functions (such as routing, firewall, content distribution) as an application running on general purpose commercial computing platforms rather than on hardware dedicated to that function – effectively virtualising that function. The connectivity network itself can now be defined by software and controlled by its clients. Such developments have profound implications for the cost base of the network and the ease with which new services can be introduced.
Services are becoming applications running over a network; these services access the network capabilities via an Application Programming Interface. How will these network APIs be defined and how will the applications control the network? What network capabilities will be available for applications to exploit? In many cases, the services and network configurations will be short-lived as new services and network configurations are required. Trends towards software-as-a service, software containers which can be rapidly assembled, used and discarded, the rise of cloud computing and storage, and The Internet of Things will demand extreme agility of the software systems and underlying telecoms networks. They also bring significant security challenges.
For telecoms technicians and engineers, it is this continuing move towards software-based services and networks that presents the big opportunity – and of course challenges. Whilst there will be an ongoing need for the practical skills in installing and managing the physical infrastructure, especially the copper and fibre access networks, an increasing proportion of people need to be skilled in the latest software trends and techniques.
For end-user facing workers, whether they be in a call centre or responsible for on-line ordering, queries or fault management, the key issues are customer experience and service experience – these have long been recognised as vital to retain customers and increase revenue per customer. With regulatory moves to make it as easy for users to change service provider as it is to change their retail bank and with the potential of social media to trash reputations in a matter of hours, the software systems that support workers on the front line, as well as the training of those workers, will be paramount.
It's not just technical skills that are changing … the different ways of working as we progress through the 21st century need to be recognised; working as part of dispersed teams, and short-lived teams established for the duration of a project, requires aptitude in collaboration and communication and of course a flexible approach. The fast moving pace of technology change will require creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and continual learning.
The routes to industry are changing too, with more apprenticeship roles offering an introduction to telecoms – a growing area that the ITP has witnessed over the past few years. It runs the only telecoms specific apprenticeship scheme, and has seen the creation of over 60 jobs in telecoms since its 2013 launch. According to CEO, Ann Potterton, "Apprenticeships are no longer regarded as second class degrees, and are providing credible alternatives for young people and employers alike to address the skills gap. These young people can be trained from scratch, which means a new workforce equipped with these emerging skills."
These are huge changes in the IT and telecoms industries - industries that can no longer be regarded as separate. And of course this has significant implications on the skill sets required of our professionals. The ability therefore of our technicians and engineers to create the services in software and to create software to configure the network will be essential.
The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) has been running its own apprenticeship scheme since 2013. The programme, launched with support from BT and Virgin Media, has created more than 60 jobs in over 24 organisations which weren't previously able to gain access to telecoms apprentices. It has recently launched a consultancy service to help the industry prepare for the levy. www.theitp.org
Mark Bond, Director, of The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) will moderate a roundtable "How can the industry solve the skills gap as we move towards digital business models?" at the Total Telecom Congress on the 4 October 2016. To find out more about joining the discussion, visit the website www.totaltele.com/congress<http://www.totaltele.com/congress> or email rob.chambers@totaltele.com
How to address the telecom skills gap
A Knowledge Network Article by Tim Wright, Director of Technology at The Institute Of Telecommunications Professionals.
Wednesday 07 September 2016
Our industry is facing unprecedented change driven largely by technology which is stimulating end users to demand more of less and to have it all, right now! Processing power, high speed broadband and mobile connectivity, low-cost storage – glued together with software controlled by apps – are the technology drivers. But are there the people with the right skills to deliver these expectations?
Looking first at some of the numbers. In 2014, some 7.5m people across the EU were ICT professionals - that's 3.4% of the total EU workforce - growing on average by 1.2% year-on-year [e-Skills in Europe whitepaper<http://goo.gl/y7U8gg>]. Half of these people work in the ICT sector itself with the rest in the ICT activities of other sectors. The UK had 22% of the EU's ICT professionals – the highest workforce of any EU country. However, the gap between the number of jobs and the demand potential is increasing from a gap of 470,000 in 2016 to 750,000 by 2020. Although a significant number of these vacancies are in Germany, the relatively low graduate figures for the UK suggest that the problem of skills shortages will be severely felt by the UK. The UK could be facing an ICT skills shortage of 160,000 by 2020.
The Daily Telegraph reported (quoting the Adzuna search engine for job ads) that in February 2015 there were over 105,000 jobs advertised in the IT sector in the UK – more than any other sector. Obviously when it comes to telecommunications sector itself, the numbers are smaller – Adzuna is currently listing 6,700 job adverts in telecoms, nearly a third of which are in London, across a wide range of telecoms disciplines.
Although we can feel reassured that there is expected to be an ongoing and increasing number of job vacancies in the telecommunications sector, that is only part of the story … it's the changing nature of the skills that is important brought about by the increasing overlap between IT and telecoms skills. The technical areas where there will be a growth in the demand for skills include mobile, cloud, apps, big data, cyber security, software-defined networking and Internet of things. These technology areas are not separate but are converging.
Advances in computing processing power mean that we can now implement many network functions (such as routing, firewall, content distribution) as an application running on general purpose commercial computing platforms rather than on hardware dedicated to that function – effectively virtualising that function. The connectivity network itself can now be defined by software and controlled by its clients. Such developments have profound implications for the cost base of the network and the ease with which new services can be introduced.
Services are becoming applications running over a network; these services access the network capabilities via an Application Programming Interface. How will these network APIs be defined and how will the applications control the network? What network capabilities will be available for applications to exploit? In many cases, the services and network configurations will be short-lived as new services and network configurations are required. Trends towards software-as-a service, software containers which can be rapidly assembled, used and discarded, the rise of cloud computing and storage, and The Internet of Things will demand extreme agility of the software systems and underlying telecoms networks. They also bring significant security challenges.
For telecoms technicians and engineers, it is this continuing move towards software-based services and networks that presents the big opportunity – and of course challenges. Whilst there will be an ongoing need for the practical skills in installing and managing the physical infrastructure, especially the copper and fibre access networks, an increasing proportion of people need to be skilled in the latest software trends and techniques.
For end-user facing workers, whether they be in a call centre or responsible for on-line ordering, queries or fault management, the key issues are customer experience and service experience – these have long been recognised as vital to retain customers and increase revenue per customer. With regulatory moves to make it as easy for users to change service provider as it is to change their retail bank and with the potential of social media to trash reputations in a matter of hours, the software systems that support workers on the front line, as well as the training of those workers, will be paramount.
It's not just technical skills that are changing … the different ways of working as we progress through the 21st century need to be recognised; working as part of dispersed teams, and short-lived teams established for the duration of a project, requires aptitude in collaboration and communication and of course a flexible approach. The fast moving pace of technology change will require creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and continual learning.
The routes to industry are changing too, with more apprenticeship roles offering an introduction to telecoms – a growing area that the ITP has witnessed over the past few years. It runs the only telecoms specific apprenticeship scheme, and has seen the creation of over 60 jobs in telecoms since its 2013 launch. According to CEO, Ann Potterton, "Apprenticeships are no longer regarded as second class degrees, and are providing credible alternatives for young people and employers alike to address the skills gap. These young people can be trained from scratch, which means a new workforce equipped with these emerging skills."
These are huge changes in the IT and telecoms industries - industries that can no longer be regarded as separate. And of course this has significant implications on the skill sets required of our professionals. The ability therefore of our technicians and engineers to create the services in software and to create software to configure the network will be essential.
The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) has been running its own apprenticeship scheme since 2013. The programme, launched with support from BT and Virgin Media, has created more than 60 jobs in over 24 organisations which weren't previously able to gain access to telecoms apprentices. It has recently launched a consultancy service to help the industry prepare for the levy. www.theitp.org
Mark Bond, Director, of The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) will moderate a roundtable "How can the industry solve the skills gap as we move towards digital business models?" at the Total Telecom Congress on the 4 October 2016. To find out more about joining the discussion, visit the website www.totaltele.com/congress<http://www.totaltele.com/congress> or email rob.chambers@totaltele.com
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