Far fewer people are finishing IT apprenticeships in the UK than are taking them up, new figures have shown.

The significant gap between the number of people beginning apprenticeships with IT companies in the UK and those completing them was revealed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in a written answer to parliament last week. The BIS figures, announced by business minister Kevin Brennan, show that while 30,700 people started IT apprenticeships between 2005 and 2009, only 16,300 completed them.

The ratio of people completing apprenticeships is comparable to that of other industries over the same period – about the same as retail and commerce apprenticeships where 180,300 people started and 96,500 people finished, but lower than construction and planning apprenticeships where 106,200 started and 72,300 finished.

Source: ZDNet

University application service UCAS has reported a rise in applications for technology-related subjects as general demand for higher education has skyrocketed.

The service received a total of 570,556 applications for full-time undergraduate study for 2010/11 by 22 January, a rise of 106,389 or 22.9 per cent over last years figures.

Subjects such as computer science received 47,249 applications, an increase of  18.9 per cent on 2009, information systems attracted 12,180 candidates (up 26.5 per cent), while 6,393 hopefuls applied for software engineering careers, an increase of 27.7 per cent on last years numbers.

Last week, business secretary Lord Mandelson announced £10m in extra funding to support universities shift the balance towards the teaching of technology, science and maths, which the government is now keen to promote.

Yahoo Tech News

The banking, telecoms and software sectors will be the key areas for IT employment in 2010, according to new research from technology recruitment organisation The IT Job Board.

Nearly half of the IT professionals questioned for the survey said that the banking sector would be the hottest recruiter next year, despite a widespread meltdown of the financial services sector in 2009. This was followed by the software and IT services sectors with 42 per cent of respondents and telecoms with 41 per cent.

Around a third said that project management roles would be most in demand next year, and the same figure chose business analyst jobs.

“I believe that next year the finance sector will really pick up. Banking was the first to be hit during the recession, but it will also be the first to recover, and it will offer a lot of opportunity in terms of IT recruitment,” said IT Job Board sales director Peter Healey.

SAP, .Net and Java skills will be among the most highly sought after in these industries next year, the report found, while 58 per cent of respondents said that contract jobs would be in greater demand during 2010, compared to permanent positions.

The number of women resigning from IT jobs has risen over the last year and the pay gap between the sexes widened for the first time in 11 years.

Research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and pay researcher Remuneration Economics shows 5.7 percent of women working in IT resigned from their roles in 2006, a rise of 2.1 percent on the previous year.

In terms of pay, women saw an average pay rise of 2.9 percent compared to a 3.1 percent increase for men, the first time in 11 years that men’s earnings have risen more than women’s.

But the research found female managers enjoy faster promotion than men, with a 37-year-old woman working as a team leader typically five years younger than her male counterpart.

Source: ZDNet