Leading industry organisations to work together to tackle the data centre industry skills shortage

FACTS:
Gartner predicts (Oct 2012):
 4.4m jobs will be created by 2015 due to the impact of Big Data alone
 Each role will create a further 3 jobs outside of IT
 Only 1/3 of these roles will be filled

TechTarget survey found:
 93% of Chief Technology Officers rate Data Centre Management skills as key
 40% expressed serious concern about current and future skills gap
 41% of Data Centres are currently recruiting
 85% had no skills strategy in place
 Coupled with the fact that current professionals are getting older – they will need to be replaced.

The DCA, CNet Training, TelecityGroup and Telehouse are working alongside The University of East London and Leeds University, both of which specialise in education in the data centre and IT sectors, to devise a free Data Centre “boot camp”. This comprises data centre training and suitability assessment - which aims to give graduates the additional knowledge they need to successfully apply for data centre related jobs today.
The first boot camp is being delivered now in The University of East London, Andrew Stevens, CEO of CNet Training who, with his technical team, has played a key role in scoping the training, ensuring the candidates gain the essential knowledge associated with a data centre technician role adds, “Once the candidates understand the place of data centres in the world economy we introduce them to a new discipline of ‘critical thinking’ – similar to that taught in the nuclear and airline industries. Because if they can’t do the joined-up thinking necessary to avoid major data centre outages, like we’ve seen in recent years, then they don’t belong in our industry.

“Every minute that a data centre is out of action can affect millions of people and cost literally £billions – so it’s essential that guarding against outages becomes part of every data centre professionals’ DNA. Our training provides an in-depth technical introduction to the elements associated with efficient operation and maintenance of a data centre and will help open the students’ eyes with regard to the technical career opportunities that could be available to them within this vibrant and fast moving sector.”

With such needs for professional training and development within the industry, CNet Training have designed and created The Global Data Centre Education Framework, a unique framework that maps professional training with actual career paths within the industry; starting at entry level through to the highly sought after level five professional qualifications. The Framework is recognised and followed by many of the worlds’ major organisations and provides confidence and assurance that their employees are professionally trained to the highest standards whilst allowing them to further progress their knowledge, skills and internationally recognised qualifications by following a structured career path that has been designed especially for the data centre industry.

Rob Coupland, UK Managing Director of pan-European data centre operator TelecityGroup, one of the sponsors of the pilot DCA Boot Camp, said: “Due to the specialised nature of the skill-set required in the data centre industry there is a limited pool of exceptional workers out there and, up until now, there have been no graduate programmes specific to the skills required. Only through the on-going development of skills will we be able to continue to deliver the level of service our customers expect, this reflects the critical importance of the role of the data centre manager and engineer in today’s data centre industry.”

Andrew Fray UK Director for DCA boot camp co-sponsor Telehouse, which operates four data centres in the UK and 45 worldwide added: “Telehouse is supporting the DCA boot camp because we believe that its rigorous pre-selection process, plus the imparting of essential sector knowledge, will lead to a supply of potential employees who are well positioned to become data centre professionals in London. The boot camp students will learn many of the well-hidden secrets of the data centre industry," said Simon Campbell-White DCA executive director, "many of the students will be amazed to find out just how many things in their lives require a data centre to make them happen – everything from their Facebook status updates, tweets and emails to holiday bookings, traffic lights and parcel deliveries. DCA is not itself a training organisation which is why we have joined forces with CNet Training and The University of East London for this boot camp.”