Approximately two-thirds of senior IT professionals in Germany (66%) have seen their businesses adversely affected by the shortage of IT talent, according to research from IT search and recruitment firm Keller West, part of The SR Group, and Sapio Research.

For the research, Keller West defined senior IT staff as professionals earning a salary of more than €90,000 per year.

According to the research, the lack of talent is negatively impacting business performance with consequences including: projects being delivered late (selected by 39% of IT leaders); being unable to launch new products and/or services (36%) or effectively serve priority business requests (31%); increased operating costs (30%); projects delivered over budget (24%); and burnout of existing employees (24%).

The study indicated that more training and professional development could help businesses to mitigate the impacts of talent shortages. Almost seven in ten senior IT leaders (69%) rate the quality of training available at their organisation as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. At the same time, 60% of respondents believe that increased investment in the professional development of their department would significantly improve its ability to contribute to commercial success.

Meanwhile, the senior IT leaders pointed to the difficulties in recruiting the right personnel for available roles, on average, just over half (55%) of new IT hires are successful (judged as possessing all the technical and soft skills required for the role). Which implies that almost half of hires are ineffective.

The study also found that as a result of the talent shortage, two-thirds of senior IT leaders (66%) have made changes to their hiring strategy. Of those who have evolved their strategy, 63% have either started to offer or increased the number of apprenticeships; 51% have hired and cross-trained from other areas of our business; 45% have started offering a visa or right-to-work scheme; while just over a third (37%) have removed the need for a related degree for new candidates.

Alex Gerritsen, partner and head of DACH for Keller West, said, “The quality of training and availability of support for ongoing professional development is becoming a vital tool in employee recruitment and retention. Employees at all levels are aware that it is essential to keep learning and develop new skills. Besides core training requirements, we’d advise businesses to let staff learn wherever their interests take them. Technology moves so quickly and it’s almost impossible to predict what skills might be needed by the business in 12 months’ time.”