7 April 2008
by Billy MacInnes
Predicted to become the focus of a "huge global skills migration" for IT security staff, the Middle East is poaching significant numbers of qualified workers from South America, Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe – but is so far struggling to win over many in the west.
Oger Systems, which is based in Saudi Arabia, argued the region would become increasingly attractive as salaries for skilled expats working in IT security continued to rise to an estimated $15,000 a month this year.
But figures released by the company showed the vast majority of IT security staff recruited last year were from countries outside the UK and US, suggesting there was some way to go before the Middle East became an attractive career destination for significant numbers of westerners.
India contributed a third of applicants for jobs posted by Oger Systems, with Brazil accounting for 14 per cent and Malaysia and Pakistan represented by seven per cent. The US contributed five per cent, and the figure for the UK was a paltry two per cent.
But Oger claimed the low figures for applicants from the west included "some top operators".
David Michaux, the company’s security consulting division manager, said the declining dollar had deterred UK workers from moving to the region, while some in the US tended to have a "paranoia" about moving to the region.
Nevertheless, he claimed there had been interest from "some very interesting guys" in the US for high-end jobs, as salaries had increased and major headhunters in the UK had been "headhunting very heavily for the Middle East".
Ian Kilpatrick, managing director at security distributor Wick Hill, said he was not worried about a brain drain of IT specialists heading to the region.
"Overall, we’re not seeing anything at reseller or vendor level," he said. "Some people go there on holiday but I’m not seeing them coming back saying they’d like to go and work out there."
And he added that there was already a shortage of people with IT security skills in the UK, allied to a number of others in the market "over-representing their skill sets and under-delivering".
