Diana Tomova graduated from the University of Essex in European Studies and modern languages in 2014. She now works as a systems admin at Defra and is also starting a degree in Computer Science.
When Computer Weekly spoke to him, at the recent ServiceNow World Forum in London, Tomovo described his passions as policies around nature, air quality, food and water. These are areas where data analytics and IT have a big role to play, and it’s why his career has seen him tackle the ServiceNow NextGen 12-week technical training program.
Given the difficulty in recruiting people with technical skills for IT jobs, building technical skills in-house can make a big difference in organizations and help individuals climb the IT career ladder.
Developing internal skills
Internships also offer a way to fulfill technical roles. Prostate Cancer UK, for example, is recruiting interns to enable it to modernize its data architecture. The charity received funding to enable it to fix data problems and hired Gerardo Del Guercio, who previously worked at the Home Office. As the charity’s solution architect, he decided that Prostate Cancer UK needed to develop an Extract Translate and Load (ETL) process in-house.
An internship – which lasts a year – is an important part of this. Prostate Cancer UK takes on one graduate each year to program the extract part of the ETL process, using robotic process automation. There can’t be many instances where an internship plays a pivotal role in a software development pipeline.
Del Gurcio has a refreshing perspective on IT career development. First, there are interns and people starting their careers. Not many organizations are in the fortunate position of being able to offer competitive salaries in the current IT job market. “If you can’t keep people with money, you have to find other ways to make their work interesting. Learning something new, to some extent, is like giving them an adrenaline rush. ‘If I stay here for a year, I’ll be this guy and then I can get out’,” he said.
Then there are people in the middle, tied to job security, possibly due to family and financial commitments. What are their motivations? How much do they value a supportive and flexible work environment?
On the other end, there are people like Del Gurcio. These are highly skilled IT people with years of experience, looking to slow down a bit.
The economic climate is driving salary increases. Digital skills are in demand. But IT leaders can and should look at all options for hiring, training and retaining talented IT individuals.