Is there a job in ICT for me?

This infographic made by Liberty Global together with Telecentre Europe addresses young Europeans, unemployed and job seekers. It aims at raising their awareness about the required digital skills in order to access ICT careers.

High Unemployment across Europe

» In January 2014, in the European Union there were :

• 26 million people unemployed
• Total unemployment 10.8%
• Youth unemployment (age 15-24)is at 23.4%
• Youth unemployment in Greece and Spain is above 50 %

But ICT jobs are in demand!

While people struggle to find jobs, it is estimated that there will be 913,000 unfilled ICT jobs by 2020. This estimate was put forward by the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs- an initiative led by the European Commission that wishes to get businesses and education providers , public and private actors to take action attracting young people into ICT careers but alos help unemployed retrain with the new skills needed. The goal is increase the supply of ICT practitioners by 2015, a win-win situation for job seekers and employers needing skilled people!

Why the gap?

In 2006 ICT graduates peaked at 127,000 but by 2011 fewer people were training : 115,000.
This means 9.5% fewer ICT graduates since 2006.

So what kind of ICT jobs are out there?

How much could I get paid?

ICT skills are valuable and pay is competitive. Salaries depend on country, gender, age, education level, and the type of job. Pay is generally higher at bigger companies, and contractors can often earn more than permanent employees. Salaries also go up for employees who have worked at a company for a long time. Average monthly earnings (Euro) in 2010, before tax:

• For someone starting a new job as a permanent employee
• In a mid-size company (250-499 employees)
• With tertiary education
• By average weekly working hours per country:

What about the skills?

The skills needed can be divided into a number of categories depending on what the person wants to achieve. Those aiming to work as ICT professionals will need to find out what skills are currently in demand, for example related to programming languages and database tools. These are very specific and depend on the profile a company is looking for at any given moment.
At another level, but also important for any work in the knowledge economy – not only in the ICT field, job seekers can get better chances of recruitment when they have general digital competences (i.e. content creation, digital communication, problem solving, software and online tools use in the office environment etc). Skills that relate to managerial or financial planning, administration and management are key to getting ahead in any profession and the same applies to ICT sector. Of great importance, and often overlooked, are the non-technical or so called soft skills related to communication, team-work, customer service, innovation and creativity.