Training 5,000 to fill tech jobs

Information technology is fast becoming a basic skill

The government has announced plans to train the long-term unemployed to fill the growing list of vacancies in the UK's information technology sector.

Chancellor Gordon Brown said 5,000 IT jobs will be made available for unemployed people who complete a training course.

A group of computer companies, including IBM, Oracle and Microsoft, have agreed to provide the posts, if the government meets the cost of training the apprentices through its New Deal programme.

The £50m three year pilot scheme, called Ambition IT, is the government's latest attempt to address chronic skills shortages in the technology sector.

Basic skills

"Ambition IT matches men and women without jobs to the businesses that need skilled IT technicians, a demand that itself is set to increase by up to 25% in the next three years," said Mr Brown.

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Trainees could expect to be offered IT technician jobs with salaries of between £15,000 and £20,000, he added.

The scheme also aims put a further 15,000 unemployed people through a basic IT skills training course to improve their job prospects.

The package of measures is part of the government's drive for full employment, after the claimant count recently fell below a million.

"Our aim is to meet the ambitions of young people on the New Deal as well as to provide a new supply of skilled people to take the vacancies that the IT industry so badly needs to fill," said employment minister Tessa Jowell.

She said information technology was fast becoming a basic skill.

Pilot areas

"We are working with everyone who has an interest in building access to technology for every person, organisation and business in the UK," said Neil Holloway, managing director of Microsoft UK.

Other companies taking part in Ambition IT are Cisco Systems, FI Group. IBM, Siemens, Consignia, Cap Gemini, Ernst and Young, Dixons, Sage Group, ICL, EDS, RM plc, Oracle and BT.

The new scheme will run in five pilot areas to be announced in the spring.

The 10 areas shortlisted for the pilot are London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, South Yorkshire, Liverpool, Tyneside, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh and the Forth area.

Industry leaders were meeting ministers at a business breakfast in Downing Street on Monday to discuss the scheme.