IT Pros Struggle to Keep Skills Current

Simon Sharwood reporting … IT pros lack recent skills:

46% of IT workers struggle to keep their skills up to date with new technology, according to CompTIA, a non-profit trade association advancing the global interests of information technology professionals.

The organisation's latest State of the IT Skills Gap research found that 43% of organisations cannot find the resources necessary to help IT departments train their staff. That reluctance to send cash IT's way may be because 39% of organisations don't see a performance boost when they do shell out for IT-specific training.

The resulting mess means that (80% of employers think they have a damaging skills gap, often impacting staff productivity (41% of respondents) customer service or customer engagement (32%), and security (31%).

Many are therefore turning to online training to close the gap. The research says online self-training has become the most popular method for educating IT professionals and that 57% of organisations are trying to close a skills gap with more training for IT workers.