| Federal public service hit by technology skills shortage |
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The third Peoplebank Intermedium Federal ICT Labour Hire Index, released today, found contractors who were once attracted by opportunities in Canberra returned to other markets, predominantly in Sydney and Melbourne. This was driven by substantial increases in ICT spending in the banking and finance sector following the global financial crisis. The government's announcement to implement Gershon saw the number of skilled ICT contractors moving to Canberra drop to almost zero in the past 12 months, the report said. "The outcome of all of this movement is that the ACT is now in the grip of a skills shortage in ICT," it concluded. "The supply of ICT skills in the ACT is likely to become extremely tight within the next 12 to 18 months, if not sooner." Peoplebank acting chief executive officer Jeff Knowles said there were shortages in Canberra already in skills such as SharePoint, Java/J2EE and .NET and also for business analysts and project managers. 'I think we have definitely seen a 20-odd per cent increase in demand over the last six months," he said. Mr Knowles said the market would start to see rate increases in the range of 5-10 per cent. The report said new whole-of-government ICT initiatives were likely to further stretch the available talent pool. These include NBN, the consolidation of Medicare, Centrelink and the Department of Human Services, data centre consolidation projects, as well as implementing the recommendations of the Defence ICT whitepaper. The report, based on AusTender data, found the total value of contracts reported in the first half of 2009-10 was 38.3 per cent down on the same period in 2008-09. The total number of contracts reported for the same period was 678, down from 1053 the previous year. This year appears to have begun at a significantly lower level than previous years, with provisional data for January to March revealing a total of 334 contracts with a value of $46.8 million. Ovum public sector research director Kevin Noonan said the effects of the Gershon Review were still moving through government agencies. 'We are right at this cusp at the moment where all the negatives are still washing through the system and some of the new work is yet to really take off," Mr Noonan said. He said there was ongoing and growing demand for legitimate skills such as experienced project managers, architects and business analysts, but the requirement for short-term expertise to deal with bigger projects had yet to come back. The federal election expected this year was also likely to affect the skills market. "If we don't have an election until late this year or early next year, then we are likely to see growing skills requirements in IT," Mr Noonan said.
Jacinta Whelan, Asia-Pacific managing director of professionals services company Resources Global Professionals, said consultants had been under-utilised in Canberra in the past 12 months, but there were signs a turnaround would emerge in the new financial year. |