Gartner: 'The talent problem is unsolvable'

Analyst John-David Lovelock claims the skills shortage will continue for another five years as firms should turn to managed services

The IT talent shortage will continue for another five years unless CIOs wake up and realise the issue, in the meantime enterprise will rely more on managed services.

That is according to Gartner VP analyst John-David Lovelock, who recently spoke with CRN about global IT spending.

The analyst firm predicts 5.4 per cent growth in managed services across application infrastructure, with 5.1 per cent 2022-2027 CAGR and spending totalling $83.9bn next year.

Lovelock says this market is "a little interesting" as growth in spending does not equate to growth in use.

"With asset delivery and artificial intelligence, things are going to be changing this market around a bit," he says.

"There's going to be more corporations utilising managed services but paying less for the services that they consume."

He adds the enterprise IT space still has an "unsolvable problem" of labour.

"Enterprises cannot attract, maintain and retain enough IT talent to meet their growing IT needs and are having to turn to consultancies to do the work. That includes managed services to continue to run their ongoing operations.

"While 5.4 per cent growth may not seem like a great number, when you look at their spending increases on their own staff, it starts to become a much nicer number."

Talent issue to continue for five years

Lovelock expects the ongoing IT skills shortage to continue for another half decade unless CIOs wake up to the reality of the challenge.

"It's unsolvable even to the point where it's almost unrecognised by most CIOs. But once they recognise the problem, they still won't be able to solve it," he says.

"A lot of people are aware they're having a hiring issue, but they're putting it down to the great resignation and this is a transitory effect. That once the resignation is over, hiring patterns will normalise again. They'll be back on top and be able to hire the people that they want and need.

"That's not true."

The analyst believes these companies are missing out on the fundamentals of what job seekers are interested in.

"They can't meet the needs or desires of people who are looking for work, which means they're not going to be on the top of the hiring cycle anytime soon."

How to solve the unsolvable

Lovelock states the answer to the problem lies within channel partners and their services.

"Get much more comfortable with consultancies.

"They can't hire people and can't reduce their need for them. Which means do more with consultancies, because you have to."