See here.
I’m a senior Oracle specialist who doesn’t live inside the M25 ring and it’s tough out there. Skills shortage? No, cheap new graduates shortage. Most of the senior-level work I see is either DBA or implementation of apps from Oracle or other ERP vendors.
I wouldn’t send my own kids into IT. It’s BORING. The fun stuff, programming, solving problems, making sure that you can truly meet needs, all that seems to be gone and have been replaced with a cheesy sweatshop mentality.
Also, sending jobs to India isn’t an issue. I work for a software house and we know we’re safe because the guys from Bangalore just don’t get the European cultural references. It isn’t cheaper to go there if everything has to be done twice – it costs a lot more in fact. I’m much more worried about places like Croatia and parts of the former Soviet Union where there isn’t the culture gap.
I also found the other comment here about higher productivity very funny – let’s move away from Oracle PL/SQL, Java and all the other sweatshop rubbish and start using some productive tools. Then it’ll happen. Longer hours? No thanks! That’s why kids are voting with their feet.