IT firm teams with school to address tech skills gap

A Dumfriesshire IT firm has teamed up with a neighbouring high school to help plug Scotland’s tech skills gap.

ETB Technologies’ initiative comes as recent research by digital infrastructure company Equinix revealed that 67 per cent of IT decision-makers in the UK view a shortage of tech skills as one of the main threats to their business. ETB sells refurbished servers, storage and network equipment globally, and will now be sending one of its engineers into Dalbeattie High School to deliver interactive sessions to S3 pupils.

The students will also be offered the opportunity to visit the firm’s engineering labs and workshops to experience life working in the tech sector, where the skills they are learning through the programme are in high demand. The firm said finding employees with specific skills can be a challenge due to its rural location.

Managing director Nick Stapleton said: “In our experience, most school or college level computing courses only cover some networking basics and have very little focus on servers and storage solutions. It’s great Dalbeattie High School is actively trying to broaden the knowledge of its students and raise awareness of the range of career opportunities available in the IT hardware industry. We’d like to see more schools and colleges follow their lead. We expect to offer this programme annually to pupils interested in working in our sector, at Dalbeattie High and hopefully other schools or further education providers too. Perhaps some of these pupils will even end up as part of the ETB team in the future,” he added.