March 19, 2024

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Will Accenture UK recruitment help ease the skills shortage?

British isles politicians have welcomed IT services huge Accenture’s strategy to build three,000 new positions in the British isles by 2024 as a raise to the UK’s electronic sector. The British isles is undergoing an ‘unprecedented’ tech skills shortage, nonetheless, and some argue that IT services providers add to the scarcity of tech skills by hoovering up talent. But other people say Accenture’s financial investment in skills will increase the profession potential clients of British isles tech employees and assistance diversify the country’s skills foundation over and above London.

Accenture UK jobs
Accenture strategies to fill the three,000 new British isles roles with graduates and by upskilling mid-profession staff. (Picture by josefkubes/iStock)

Accenture declared yesterday that it strategies to develop its British isles workforce by incorporating three,000 roles by 2024. The IT services organization currently employs 11,000 men and women in the place. Fifty percent of the new positions will be positioned outside of London, in the company’s places of work in Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Accenture’s final decision to develop its British isles workforce is a reaction to “demand from our shoppers in technological innovation services and cloud engineering, but also sustainability and intelligent operations,” Shaheen Sayed, Accenture’s technological innovation direct for British isles and Ireland, informed Tech Monitor.

British isles politicians welcomed Accenture’s announcement as a raise to the country’s put up-pandemic restoration. “This expansion by Accenture is a good instance of the variety of digitally focused, significant-experienced positions that will assistance degree up economic development throughout the entire of the British isles and assistance us develop back superior,” said enterprise secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.

Accenture British isles recruitment: why is it increasing its workforce?

While Accenture’s possess Tech Expertise Tracker for the 1st half of this yr discovered that British isles tech job listings were even now underneath pre-pandemic amounts, “we are viewing inexperienced shoots of restoration,” Sayed said. “We have self-assurance in the British isles in the long term, getting seen the financial system rebound quickly adhering to the pandemic.”

The go is a continuation of the new development and organisational design that Accenture adopted last yr, states Nitish Mittal, companion at IT analyst organization Everest Group. The organization shifted from a few functioning teams (technique, electronic and development sector) to a few regional models: North The us, Europe, and development markets. As part of that reorganisation, Accenture appointed Simon Eaves, its previous chief technique officer, to direct its British isles and Ireland sector device.

“If Accenture’s current economical final results are nearly anything to go by, this technique is beginning to shell out off,” Mittal states. Past thirty day period, the organization noted a fourteen% raise in its yearly profits to a document $50.5bn. Accenture was the international IT services service provider that bounced back swiftest from the pandemic.

But Accenture is not the only IT services huge increasing its British isles footprint. Indian IT giants Infosys, Mphasis, HCL and Wipro have all declared strategies to raise financial investment in their British isles workforces, as shoppers demand from customers a lot more ‘on-shore’ IT capabilities. “This is a part of the industry’s concentration to improve client proximity, versus generally using offshore functionality hubs these kinds of as India,” clarifies Mittal. He adds that it assists these companies’ “brand developing” in the British isles.

This is a part of the industry’s concentration to improve client proximity, versus generally using offshore functionality hubs these kinds of as India.
Nitish Mittal, Everest Group

These moves are great news for IT services customers, Mittal thinks, as they build a pool of skilled IT employees nearby. This improves collaboration and the high quality of the provider romantic relationship, he states.

Boosting in-sector means assists suppliers mirror the distribution of their clients’ possess workforce, states Mittal. And, as wages raise in traditional offshore shipping and delivery centres these kinds of as India, the Philippines and Eastern Europe, it is turning out to be a lot more economically practical. “With higher wage inflation in traditional services shipping and delivery markets, these in-sector investments start to look beautiful as the value gulf reduces,” Mittal states.

How will Accenture’s new positions in the British isles have an effect on the skills shortage?

The UK’s tech skills shortage achieved an “all-time significant” this yr, in accordance to the Harvey Nash Digital Leaders Survey, posted last thirty day period. Two-thirds of British isles tech leaders surveyed say they are not able to maintain tempo with technological improve because of to a dearth of talent. Previously this yr, Tech Monitor‘s Tech Leaders Agenda study discovered that cloud and cybersecurity are the most in-demand from customers places of IT skills.

Accenture will fill its three,000 new roles by recruiting graduates and upskilling mid-profession staff, states Sayed. “We carry on to devote in our existing staff, guaranteeing that they remain ahead of the curve when it comes to the hottest technological innovation developments,” she clarifies. “With technological innovation accelerating at a tempo, we’re incorporating to an previously effectively-founded technological innovation curriculum for our men and women, which includes a concentration on contemporary application engineering, multi-cloud certifications, facts and AI.”

But will Accenture’s recruitment of three,000 sought-immediately after tech employees assistance British isles organisations entry the electronic skills they require? Professor Leslie Willcocks, emeritus professor of operate, technological innovation and globalisation at the London Faculty of Economics, notes that IT services businesses can be equally a solution and a source of tech skills shortages. “There is an exciting dynamic with support distributors and consultancies hoping to get the very best talent and providing it to shoppers, but in securing the talent, they partly build the scarcity they are servicing.”

Mittal argues that IT services businesses recruiting British isles talent will not direct to income will increase for IT employees in the place, mainly because they are hunting over and above London to come across employees. “Service providers are diversifying over and above the huge professional hubs to concentration on emerging and founded support shipping and delivery centres in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, and Newcastle,” he clarifies. “This will allow them to faucet into newer, and generally a lot more cost-effective, sources of talent to aid long-term sustenance.”

Indeed, investments these kinds of as Accenture’s increase the profession potential clients for tech employees in the British isles, Mittal argues. “In the long operate, investments in the British isles tech talent landscape can build a flourishing ecosystem of talent supply and client demand from customers, major to significant-high quality employment opportunities in the British isles and Ireland technological innovation sector.”

Professor Rachid Hourizi, director of electronic skills instruction service provider at the Institute of Coding welcomed Accenture’s announcement as a “very positive move towards an eventual restoration from the pandemic”.

“It does draw interest back, nonetheless, to the simple fact that there was a effectively-noted electronic skills gap in the British isles right before lockdown and to the increasing body of evidence that accelerating electronic adoption is causing that gap to develop broader,” he adds. “As we flip towards economic restoration, the scale and efficiency impact of the UK’s electronic skills shortage and the soaring number of tech sector vacancies signifies that it is vital that we carry on to build obtainable pathways that make it possible for a much larger and a lot more various group of people to upskill and reskill for tech careers.”

Pete Swabey is editor-in-chief of Tech Monitor.