Academy aims to plug shortfall in UK tech skills
Cardiff-based DevOpsGroup is launching an academy with a mission to eradicate the UK’s tech skill shortage and invest in the high-performing IT professionals of the future.
The company, which also has a base in London, is one of the world’s leading organisations for DevOps engineering consultancy and training.
The DevOpsGroup Academy is developing a range of new courses, graduate internships and innovative educational collaborations between universities, government and the commercial sector.
The UK’s technology sector is currently worth around £184bn to the British economy, having increased by £14bn over the past year alone, and is currently outgrowing other industries by 2.6 times, according to the latest Tech Nation report. Yet half of UKbased technology companies believe there’s a shortage of highly skilled professionals.
Additionally, a recent study from Computer Weekly claims that there’ll be 800,000 unfilled IT jobs in the UK by 2020, signaling that much more needs to be done to train the next generation of technology professionals.
“DevOpsGroup has always been driven by a passion for enabling IT transformation at the speed of disruption,” says James Harvey, CEO and head of DevOpsGroup Academy.
“DevOpsGroup has ran a fantastic, forward-thinking internship scheme since 2015, which we plan to take to the next level with the DevOpsGroup Academy, providing a mixture of formal and practical training to those looking to forge a career in the technology sector.
“We will build on the fine work that’s been done to date in developing technology talent in south Wales and accelerating Cardiff ’s tech ecosystem.
“Working with a range of local universities and the British Computing Society, we are uniquely able to provide enterprises, SMEs and universities and further education institutions a unique and unbeatable mixture of technical and non-technical courses, internship schemes and summer placements.
“Our real USP is sharing expert, practical knowledge which accelerates textbook-based learning and allows us to run public training courses that are focused and specific.
“We are also launching a new summer placement internship with the National Software Academy at Cardiff University, as well as piloting a really innovative DevOps ‘bootcamps’ programme, for which Welsh SMEs can claim back 50% of the cost from the government.”
Mr Harvey added: “STEM learning can quickly become outdated. Which is why DevOpsGroup Academy is on a mission to change that and act as a finishing school for computer science graduates.
“There’s always a clear disparity between what’s taught in the classroom and what the commercial world is looking for.
“We’re trying to bridge this gap by running these commercial, industry-recognised courses for people at any level.”