If you work in the IT sector or education – or simply read a newspaper – there’s no need to tell you that a chronic shortage of qualified IT professionals continues to impede economic growth in the UK. Yet, despite agreeing that there is a problem, authorities across industry, the education sector and the Government, fail to agree on whether this is as the result of misdirected training provision, a lack of understanding as to the role of professional certification, a lack of industry recognition as to the value of skills or Government lip-service in terms of drawing the parties together.
In our new white paper, we set out to question “whose fault is the IT skills gap?” Over the next few blog articles, we’ll be looking at this from the perspective of IT professionals, employers and the education sector. Today, we see what the professionals ‘at the sharp end’ have to say.
“Having worked hard and studied for some time, I successfully completed my LPIC 3 certification. It is one of the top certifications I have and it confirms to end clients that I have a deep understanding and complete end to end view of any Linux environment. The goal for any professional Linux specialist should be the LPIC 3 Cert. I know from personal experience that it will not only benefit you professionally but also financially, as end clients pay a premium for top rated qualifications and professionals who attain them.”
Thomas Carroll, AFDR, Chief Infrastructure Architect, AFDR
Some of our headline findings:
- Almost four in ten (39%) respondents said they’d like to do more IT training and nearly a third (29%) felt their employer could be doing more to improve their knowledge and skills.
- Almost half (48%) of those who had achieved a LPI Certification had funded their own certification
- 88% of IT professionals surveyed said certification delivered tangible positive results for their career and personal development.
- 57% of IT professionals surveyed attached very high or high importance to achieving Open Source certification.
- 80% stated that: “FOSS is essential to allow freedom of choice, remove vendor lock in and allow us to deliver the best solutions”.
We know that today’s employers want candidates with advanced, professional-level skills in CISCO, Networking, Linux and Open Source systems. Certification is demonstrable evidence of those skills and application, which is why an increasing number of forward-thinking education and training providers are building certification into their programmes. For IT professionals motivated by self-improvement and professional development, this white paper’s findings show that Linux certification delivers wide-ranging personal and professional benefits.