UK to see significant loss of network engineers within five years

The networking industry is facing a skills shortage as engineers continue retiring. Most UK CIO’s (74%) say that a shortfall in engineers has led to an inability to manage networks, an equal number of UK engineers (74%) and 81% of global engineers agree with this also. Additionally, 64% of UK CIOs state that they are now struggling to meet user or customer expectations in today’s economic environment.

The Opengear study surveyed 502 CIOs and 510 network engineers across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Australia. It shows that 88% of UK engineers have been forced to achieve more with fewer resources over the past three months, which is similar to those globally (87%). To remedy this issue, both UK CIOs (42%) and engineers (34%) identify investment in automation, AI or other emerging technologies as vital to addressing the tech skills shortage, along with remote/hybrid working capabilities which an equal number (36%) of UK CIOs and engineers agree with.

“As skills shortages persist, technologies such as Smart Out of Band can empower under-pressure IT teams to flexibly deploy, manage and remediate business networks, allowing them more time to focus on critical network tasks for better business performance and improved customer satisfaction. Reliable remote access also means that businesses can securely manage their IT networks from any location with a hybrid workforce,” said Gary Marks, President at Opengear.