Some 63% of the 300 UK IT senior executives surveyed by Computer Business Review said they had trouble finding people with the right skills, but only 22% thought they were in the midst of a full-on skills crisis.
Surprisingly, the biggest shortages were not for new skills but for people with legacy systems experience (20%), followed by client-server aptitude (15%), and people who could implement and support packaged software (13%). Bespoke software development skills were also sought after by 11% of the respondents.
Managerial skills were seen as much easier to come by. Only 8.4% of the IT chiefs were looking to fill less technical roles.
A July study by Microsoft, Lancaster University Management School, and the British Computer Society, suggested that in the long term the lack of new IT graduates would make the skills shortage even worse.
The study found a 50% drop in applications for computer-related degrees over the last five years. With the UK only producing 20,000 new IT graduates each year, the report anticipated that staff with high-end software skills would become an even rarer breed.
