ICTISC releases ‘ICT Skill Gap Analysis Report’ emphasising importance of new trends in IT

ICTISC Chairman Chinthaka Wijewickrama handing over the ‘ICT Skill Gap Analysis Report’ to State Minister of Skills Development, Vocational Education, Research and Innovation Dr. Seetha Arambepola

The ICT Industry Skills Council (ICTISC) recently released the ‘ICT Skill Gap Analysis Report’. Accordingly, ICTISC Chairman Chinthaka Wijewickrama handed over ‘The ICT Skill Gap Report’ to Minister of State for Skills Development, Vocational Education, Research and Innovation Dr. Seetha Arambepola.

“The objective of this skill need and gap analysis is to provide analysis on the training and skills development requirements of the whole ICT industry for a five-year period. It will be a key document in preparing training intervention plan and will provide with information on which TVET sector can design future training services. The analysis will gauge existing skill gaps, skill shortage, changing requirements and future demands in line with sectarian growth and technological modernization,” said Wijewickrema.

He added: “The report captured the current demand as well as the future trends of the industry. The report based on the demand considering where industry wants to be with an overall vision of catering to local demand and to become an ICT skill hub of the Asia by creating 300,000 skilled ICT workforces by 2025 as part of the ICT Skills Council Vision for Sri Lanka.”

This research report was prepared by the Survey Research Lanka (SRL) on behalf of the ICTISC.

This report highlights a number of key issues related to the ICT-BPM industry, including:

ICT-BPM sector revenue growth has been sharp in the last decade globally which has been supportive to uphold the growth of the sector in Asian countries like Sri Lanka where it works as offshore development centres for many global ICT companies. 

COVID-19 has impacted a large number of countries and businesses while expanding lot of innovative opportunities for an industry like ICT. However, ICT industry also needs to work harder to sustain the development as well as to acquire opportunities that are coming up. 

Needless to say that, COVID-19 impact has resulted in slashing employment and closing up businesses including ICT, with the right talent and infrastructure Sri Lanka would have a lot of opportunities to drive and sustain local ICT sector development. 

This would drive a large growth of export earnings through ICT with the blessing and support of the new Government policies in place in favour of the ICT industry development.

Some of the emerging occupational categories are computer operators with advanced skills, cyber security, mobile app developer, big data management specialist, AI/machine learners, cloud management, IOT engineers, block chain engineers and social media marketing professions.