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China and India have many high quality graduates many of whom will be draw to IT and programming. In 10+ years time can you see a future for programmers in this country? The level of English by many Indians in particular is excellent.
In 10 years time the organisation and communication has improved but costs of running a business in Asia will still be much lower than in Europe.
There will always be a place for some local programmers who understand particular local requirements but the overall trend can only be down.
Electricians and plumbers can never be outsourced but the very nature of code makes it an easy option.
The market is also moving. China will become the largest consumer nation resulting in many technological items being developed for that market resulting in even more development demand shifting east as obviously Chinese developers will understand the Chinese market better. India will not be far behind.
The result in this is a double shift of development to Asia and downward shift in development in the Europe / USA.
you're just trying to get some google ranking for this text aren't you?
As the Chinese/Indian internal market grows, demand for programming skills will increase. The value of the Pound/Euro/Dollar will only weaken over time. At some point, it will be more cost-effective to hire British/European/American programmers.
Wages in India have risen to such an extent that a lot of outsourcing is moving to other Asian markets now in any event.
Like call centres it's not always a wholly succesful or cost effective way to work particularly where a companies software IPR is important to them - there's too many moree opportunities for source code to 'leak' if it's offshore.
In 10+ years time can you see a future for programmers in this country?
Yes. People don't outsource small jobs, they don't outsource things that need close co-operation with the client. They DO however outsource long term maintenance or big tedious projects.
India and China might be cheap, but they are not always what the customer wants or needs.
A lot of big multi national companies (like the one I work for) tend to stay away from outsourcing. what they do however, is set up delivery centres in such countries, and then use the resources as needed on the physical site of the project. For example I guy I work with has been in the UK for a year or so, working on this project, he's going to London in a month or so to start a different project.
the costs of the delivery centre are less, but he gets paid just the same as all the other 'portable' staff in the company
Get security cleared, they won't outsource security and defense development.
I think this depends on the type of programming you do - if you work in a company that bids for outsourced programming work then yes, you may have issues competing with the India/Asia. The best way to counteract that IMO would be do demonstrate that the quality of your output is higher (i.e. worth the extra outlay).
The IT company I work at produces software for general consumption by the telecoms industry - we're a direct vendor, rather than a company who supplies outsourced IT expertise. As such, we're not in a position to be affected by the outsourcing you're talking about - we'd be more likely to have to compete with vendors in the same market space.
So I guess if you want to worry less about programming as a viable career, work at a company that produces software products rather than one that bids for outsourcing contracts.
A lot of mid level programming is going to former Eastern, now Central Europe. THe stuff going to india and China is usually the 'blind' stuff where modules can be written without context. However, there is a shortfall of IT professional in the UK, fewer and fewer folks are choosing ICT tasks courses in the UK
Perhaps less people are choosing IT as their career path (in particular, developers), as they see most of their future jobs being outsourced?
The main reason why I opted for sys admin, not development - you can't outsource us to another country.
I think people are realising that cheap does not mean value.
I have worked with teams in India and Russia and there are additional costs involved with outsourcing that are not initially obvious.
To maintain quality and correct direction, you probably need one local engineer for every 5 outsourced engineers. We also found that when engineers go back home their productivity seemed to drop to about half that of when they are on site.
I also worked on a project that after an overrun and overspend of two years was still not finished and was canned. I am pretty confident that the initially more expensive on shore quote given by people who had first hand experience of the problem would have completed a working solution in a sensible time scale.
That aside one of the motivations we had for outsourcing was not cost initially but the lack of suitable local resource.
As an aside we had some Indian and Russian engineers on site as part of an extended team and they were great. They were clever good engineers and very nice with it.
So I don't think it will spell the end of on shore development.
Bazzer
PS just to clarify I mainly work in embedded software rather than web site or PC software. So this brings with it its own challenges when out sourcing.
[i]As the Chinese/Indian internal market grows, demand for programming skills will increase. The value of the Pound/Euro/Dollar will only weaken over time. At some point, it will be more cost-effective to hire British/European/American programmers.
[/i]
What a load of bull !.
how on earth you sit there thinking you can predict the rise or decline in a currency, 10 years from now !.
🙄
You do know that China is [i]fixing[/i] its currency ?.
Anyway. Finally, people in the UK are starting to look up the road and see whats coming.
Years ago we were sold "Globalisation" and were told it would be good for us. The Eastern economies could take on the old, dirty, heavy industries and we would move into the skills based services and Tony Blairs favour term "Value added" work.
Of course, Mr Singh and Mr Wang were never going to be happy being the dirty engine room of the world, and rightly so, they had aspirations to do what we do. White collar jobs performed by educated, skilled people.
Problem is, the west has certain expectations, certains costs of [i]living[/i]. Costs that are way higher than those in the East.
And its mainly living costs that drive a mans wage demand, right ?.
And so heres the flaw in the Globalisation plan we were all told would be so good for us.
Of course, if you are [i]in business[/i] then exploiting cheap labour and low tax rates offered by the East, so that you can sell to the high price paying west, is a dream come true.
What a mess. This isn't just IT, this is nearly any industry that isn't bolted to the floor. It'll all go east.
I've not a problem with China and India getting in on the world trade scene, etc. But its hardly a level playing field, is it.
And so I really worry for school leavers today.
i like the idea of everyone here having to learn urdu and mandarin so we can be cheap tech support for asiatelecom in the future
Perhaps less people are choosing IT as their career path (in particular, developers), as they see most of their future jobs being outsourced?
It's possible, but there is a shortfall in this countries, It appears that the shortage is driving the outsourcing rather than the other way round
[i]but there is a shortfall in this countries, It appears that the shortage is driving the outsourcing rather than the other way round[/i]
Yes !, but why on earth aren't any of your companies training people, err, like school leavers ?.
It use to work in them olden days you know.
Think they may have called it an....apprenticeship.
If people in this country are too selfish to offer training and recruit with the UK, then thats a very sorry state of affairs.
On the bright side the lack of dull dreary and overpaid IT workers no longer able to fund their habit of buying very expensive machinery to show off in car parks as a personality substitute might force the bike industry to cut it's prices in this market. 🙂
Think they may have called it an....apprenticeship.
Totally agree with this, I think a return to proper engineering apprenticeships would be a great thing.
At the moment businesses don't seem to be prepared to pay to develop the skills they require then moan when they are not available.
Yes I can see a future but it'll be quite different.
I manage an IT department and we do programming in house and have also outsourced some in the past. The problems really come from the fact that just being able to program is only part of the skill - applying that to the specific scenario is really where the skill is - users rarely really know what they want (first time at least) and understanding specific business and how they work helps speed the whole process up and make it delivery what the users want.
When we did the outsourcing previously (approx 1/4 to 1/3 of the cost of UK based programmers), we found that it also took at least twice as long to deliver, if not more and also required a lot of support from us to ensure that we actually got what we wanted. Obviously that experience will depend on the exact setup but that situation will always exist. Also, at present, there's very high turnover in Indian/etc outsource companies meaning that there's no chance for the business knowledge to grow and be retained.
It's one of those savings that look good on paper but don't really deliver so well in the real world and a lot of companies are realising that now and being much more selective in what they outsource.
I think a return to proper engineering apprenticeships would be a great thing.
Yes, but not entirely sure it'd work in software development.
applying that to the specific scenario is really where the skill is
Absolutely - could not agree more. That is really the core of what I was alluding to above.
Think they may have called it an....apprenticeship.
See my experience over the last 15years has been really positive. I have always had work (Contractor like you) and I have done pretty well financially out of it too.
I sometimes think I would like a job that is more people orientated, but I enjoy engineering enough to not worry about it too much.
I think that you are wrong to assume that jobs such as Plumbing (that require a physical presence) can’t be outsourced. How many comments/conversations have you seen about Polish Plumbers/Builders over the last few years and the NHS is quite happy to actively recruit foreign nurses (to the determent of care in their homeland in some cases).
Poor quoting above I meant to quote molgrips comment.
Yes, but not entirely sure it'd work in software development.
Some interesting points about importance of programming blind modules vs understanding a poorly outlined brief.
I think that you are wrong to assume that jobs such as Plumbing (that require a physical presence) can’t be outsourced. How many comments/conversations have you seen about Polish Plumbers/Builders over the last few years and the NHS is quite happy to actively recruit foreign nurses (to the determent of care in their homeland in some cases).
I know this has happened for builders but less so for plumbers and electricians because of the extra ticked required, e.g unvented plumbing works requires registration, Part P for electrical, ACS gas e.t.c
Last two companies Ive worked for have a massive on-site presence by a Indian "outsourced" resource. Im sitting now surrounded by about 100 Indians working on a dev project. They outsource, but then just fly the guys here to work at the customer's premises.
Yes !, but why on earth aren't any of your companies training people, err, like school leavers ?.
'cos they don't want to do them kind of jobs
Last two companies Ive worked for have a massive on-site presence by a Indian "outsourced" resource. Im sitting now surrounded by about 100 Indians working on a dev project. They outsource, but then just fly the guys here to work at the customer's premises.
That does make more sense from the point of view of getting the job done and obtaining resource. Though when we did this it was no cheaper than hiring local resource when expenses were taken into account. Reason we did it was lack of suitable local resource.
What type of development is it by the way ?
The main reason why I opted for sys admin, not development - you can't outsource us to another country.
Err... I really wouldn't count on that. I'm C level support when not doing project/design work, A and B are in India. Reliable OOB and virtualisation means it's not only possible it's happening. In fact this is what I'm expected to design toward as a delivery mechanism.
I'm not going to say they are actually any good at it though - they seem to lack the necessary blend of psychology and extreme violence required (actually initiative and persistence but the first sounds better). The developers seem better as it's usually a binary problem - the code works or deosn't - whilst admin work is almost always shades of grey.
The main reason why I opted for sys admin, not development - you can't outsource us to another country.
Oh yes you can!
Bazzer - can you imagine having an apprentice? I think apprenticeships are great but like I say, not sure it'd work for IT. In any case there is usually a strong process of mentoring and review for graduates which amounts to the same thing just organised differently.
Did you guys know that India has different rules for people employed by Indian companies but working outside of India? Basically it allows the Indian companies to be quite competitive by really screwing their staff. They get no sick pay and terrible terms and conditions. Cut-throat business it is, for all involved 🙁
Bazzer - can you imagine having an apprentice? I think apprenticeships are great but like I say, not sure it'd work for IT. In any case there is usually a strong process of mentoring and review for graduates which amounts to the same thing just organised differently.
I guess my work is not strictly IT, its an engineering environment and there used to be apprenticeships. A mix of on the job training and part time HNC/degree. I think this could work very well for some people. Trouble is today is it would be seen as second best to a route straight to university at 18, even though it could produce better engineers at the end of the day.
can you imagine having an apprentice? I think apprenticeships are great but like I say, not sure it'd work for IT.
I think if you named it, say, something like 'Pair Programming' or maybe something rad like Xtreme Programming they'd be queueing up for it 😆
Well pure development is fairly academic. I don't think there's much other than general work experience that can be directly taught via an apprenticeship that can't be taught at a university. After all we can all sit at a computer screen, we don't need to be under some big machine or down a pit to learn our craft.
Back to the original topic you could look at parallels between software engineering and other kinds of engineering. We 'outsourced' our bulk manufacturing many years ago, but we still have a manufacturing business in specific very high tech areas.
Back to the original topic you could look at parallels between software engineering and other kinds of engineering. We 'outsourced' our bulk manufacturing many years ago, but we still have a manufacturing business in specific very high tech areas
Would totally agree with that, we are still a very creative nation.
but without a manufacturing base we are in decline other countries realise you that
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12170223
clubber - Member
The main reason why I opted for sys admin, not development - you can't outsource us to another country.
Oh yes you can!
Not when you need to be physically in front of the server, or get called out at 3am to reboot a frozen firewall, etc.
Just like plumbers/electricians - we need to have physical access to equipment.
That's pretty minimal though and the bigger companies who offer that sort of support (eg the ones we're dealing with which is why I know it can be done) will have UK based people for the emergency situations.
The small firm when I'm the IT manager, they tried to use a local IT support company when my predecessor left. They lasted 1 month, before they decided to try another IT company. Sure enough, that lasted one month too, before they decided to hire a replacement IT manager.
I agree that for larger companies, perhaps some of their IT admin support could be outsourced, but you'd have to be really big for that.
Quite possibly reasonably big but I think that as outsource companies get more experienced (and servers/etc improve and head more in the direction of cloud services) they'll be increasingly able to offer fully remote supported services. It's certainly what I'm seeing.
Anything regulated by the FSA is another area which is harder to outsource. Guaranteeing the securing of customer's financial information to an overseas company is a lot harder.
I've moved away from pure development and into specialist applications. It's more of a niche area and hopefully harder to outsource - although jobs are a little thinner on the ground. I've got experience to fall-back on tho.