The Olympics challenge

The London 2012 Olympics offer a renewed challenge to London and the whole of England, with regards to IT and Telecoms skills needs and development. 

According to a report by Cambridge Econometrics, 'What Skills by When', the IT and Telecoms industry in London is projected to grow by 38% from 2006 to 2021 - compared with 15 % across all industries over the same period. This represents 65,000 extra employees needed in the IT & Telecoms industry from 2006 to 2021.

For more details on the research, please see a summary below:

Summary of the Cambridge Econometrics report 'What skills by When' (PDF - 443KB)

To help businesses access London 2012 tender opportunities, a new electronic system called CompeteFor, is currently being piloted across the UK and will be formally launched in early 2008. By registering now, you will be ready for the first contract opportunities and will have access to business support to help you improve your readiness to compete. For details, go to www.competefor.com/london2012business.

Background research

London ranks second amongst the nine English regions according to the size of its IT workforce, having 217,202 employees in the IT workforce (of which 116,190 employees in the IT industry and 101,021 IT professionals working in other industries) as well as 2.5M individuals who use IT in their day to day work.

Employers in London identified that by 2008, 112,501 Business Managers will need to improve their routine IT user skills and 67,544 will need to improve their IT professional skills.

For the current IT user workforce there is a need for the upskilling of up to 793,888 people, 276,271 to address current gaps and 517,617 to address the 2008 forecast.

These findings were taken from e-skills UK 2005 'IT Insights: Regional Skills in London' report. The report is one of a set of 11 reports for the nine English regions, Scotland and Wales, which can be downloaded free of charge at www.e-skills.com/itinsights.

NB - We have just carried out some extensive research to provide an update on the IT Insights 2004-05 data. The headline report 'Technology Counts: IT and Telecoms Insights 2008' is now available to download at www.e-skills.com/insights08. A suite of 'IT & Telecoms Insights 2008: Regional/National Skills Analysis' reports are being finalised and will be available at a later date.

Last modified: 13 May 2008