UK IT sector requires 110,000 new professionals in 2011 to meet demand

e-Skills UK's Technology Insights report indicates demand for IT Professionals will rise by 2.19% over the next 10 years, nearly five times faster than the UK average. As many as 500,000 IT workers will be demanded within the coming 5 years.

e-Skills UK's chief Karen Price said, "With high levels of unemployment in the UK, this research shows that IT and telecoms is one sector of the economy where employment is growing steadily."

The report also discloses that the proportion of IT professionals under 30 years of age decreased from 33% in 2001 to 19% 2010, whilst the number of workers over 50 has doubled to 17% during the same period.  

Karen Price said that there was a special need for new kinds of training and development programmes to encourage young people, especially women to move into the IT sector.

At present, 1.5 million people in the UK are working in the IT sector, 40% are working in the IT and telecoms sector, while the remaining are spread across other sectors of the UK economy.