IT graduates 'don't have the right skills'

SCOTTISH universities are not training IT students with enough specialist skills and knowledge to make them useful to the industry, according to a fast-growing IT firm.

Glasgow-based Velos IT said it would take on a higher number of graduates if they had the right skills, such as specialisms in Microsoft or Oracle systems.

The firm - which provides IT services to companiens running Oracle and JD Edwards software in more than 25 countries - has 57 staff and is increasing its headcount by 15 per cent in the next three months to cope with demand.

Velos - whose clients include Wolfson Microelectronics, Miller Group and Sheffield City Council - has received grant funding from Scottish Enterprise to help fuel expansion, with contracts in place to increase revenue from 3 million last year to 5m in 2011.

Commercial director Alan Kerr said: "If universities were to focus on relevant accreditation for students, our business would definitely look to recruit more graduates, and I am sure this is the case for similar businesses.

"At the moment, to employ a graduate with generalist skills and knowledge could involve more than a year of further training to gain the necessary application accreditation, and this is something that businesses, particularly in the current economic climate, cannot afford to do."

But Universities Scotland, the body that represents the nation's 21 higher education institutions, defended the sector's record. A spokeswoman said: "Universities bend over backwards to work with businesses and professional bodies as they develop and refine their courses but this has to be a two-way thing and businesses need to tell universities directly what it is that they want.

"As well as specialist technical skills, graduates come with well developed 'soft' skills including the ability to learn, unlearn and re-learn, which, over the course of a career, will be vital to those working in the fast-moving IT environment."

Some of Scotland's modern universities are already tackling the skills gap.

The University of the West of Scotland (UWS) said it was "actively looking" to secure cash from the Scottish Funding Council to offer industry-accredited placements to its under- and post-graduate students, focusing on Oracle's database management software.

Patrick Afchain, business development manager at UWS's school of computing, said: "This approach will address the needs of both employers and individuals by producing business-ready graduates who can immediately fill current industry gaps."

Meanwhile, Edinburgh Napier University has formed partnerships with technology companies Cisco and SAP.

Sally Smith, head of the school of computing at Napier, said: "We are a Cisco regional academy and, while Cisco accreditation was initially integrated with our advanced networking masters course, we have moved this into the undergraduate courses."

SAP training is also being built into post- and undergraduate degrees.