Will poor maths really damage the future pool of IT skills?

Declining standards in maths across UK schools will lead to an IT skills shortage according to Scott Fletcher of ANS Group.  Citing results which show that teenagers in England are half as likely as pupils from other developed nations to reach the highest levels of maths, Fletcher believes the natural correlation between coding and mathematics will erode the skill pool.

It would be foolish to argue that maths and programming go hand-in-hand, but the conclusion seems to be too narrowly pointed at one aspect of IT.  Hard coding will always be a huge part of IT, but there are many other roles and skill sets that comprise the hi-tech workforce.

In fact, one of the main influencing trends in IT today is the collective attempt to make technology more business friendly and less techie.  New roles have emerged around ideas such as IT customer service, DevOps and incorporating consumer devices which are designed to blur the lines between the techies and the workers.

The economy will always need the programmers and developers to build tools and platforms. But the major growth in IT over the next few decades will be less about the technology itself, and more about improving the technology experience to help staff work more effectively.

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