According to Nigel Shadbolt, President of the British Computer Society, the British computer industry faces a crisis due to a mismatch between demand and supply of computing graduates.

There has been a steep decline in the numbers of people studying CS in recent years and of those counted as studying CS many are only taking CS as part of their degree.

Nigel seems to atribute this to poor schooling and the ‘grey’ image of Computer Scientists. I can’t say much about current schooling as it was some time ago when I was schooled and I know that the ‘grey’ image is a bit of a myth, probably put about by jealous media types.

I also wonder whether the trend to offshoring jobs is deterring people from CS study. I wouldn’t want to take on tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt to enter an industry where jobs are being offshored at the rate of thousands per year.

BCS itself seems broadly supportive of offshoring. See for example the BCS position on offshore outsourcing and the report of the BCS Working Group on Offshoring. Perhaps they should investigate further whether prospective CS students are being turned off because of offshoring.

Nigel Shadbolt’s comments were reported on the BBC News site here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6155998.stm