If you’re working in the lower reaches of the IT consulting business, be very afraid. The increasingly global nature of the IT job market and the accelerating rate of offshoring are making the future for many UK-based IT experts look decidedly shaky.

The new challengers for your job are the high-tech equivalent of the Polish plumber, but they can be based almost anywhere: China, Brazil and India, as well as eastern Europe. They are highly educated, highly skilled, motivated — and prepared to work for less money than you are.

A good indicator of the speed at which this change is taking place is to look at the change in the way IT consultancies are earning their fees in the UK. In 2004, firms that belong to the Management Consultancies Association earned £876m from systems development and £690m from IT consulting work. Last year, systems development work fell to £840m while the value of the consulting work jumped to £795m. Clients are looking for more strategic advice on how to get the best value out of their IT systems.

The future of IT consulting is expected to involve fewer large-scale projects, which could mean fewer UK-based jobs. If there was once a distinct division between IT and management consulting, it is being eroded.

Those who think their specialist knowledge of particular software or systems will keep their services in demand could be in for a shock. The pace of change in the IT consulting industry will only increase, according to Richard Knight, consultancy director for Diagonal Consulting, who says: “In the technology market, wherever you are, you’re seeing commoditisation at a very rapid and accelerating rate.”

IT consultants need to be able to offer advice as well as execution, developing relationships and looking beyond the immediate IT needs of a business, says Knight.

Peter Chadha, director of business systems advice for BDO Stoy Hayward, argues that consultants in the UK need to raise their game. “As technical skills become more commoditised, they need to be thinking about interface skills, how to improve on processes and introduce elements of automation, yet there seems to be a lack of aptitude for it in this country,” he says.

“I’ve worked in India and there’s a huge amount of talented people who are bang up to date in terms of the technology and their skills. I don’t think the UK has seen the true impact of offshoring yet.”

Andrew Crowley, vice-president and chief executive officer of CSC Deutschland Solutions, says that although consultants’ experience base has to be higher, it is good news for those IT people able to make the transition. The people with the right mix of industry-specific and managerial experience should be in stiff demand, far more so than those with just a general MBA and no grounding in IT.

Your experience increasingly needs to be international, says Crowley. You need to be able to demonstrate that you’ve managed a project across borders, involving teams in the UK and in the rest of the world. “The people who will get ahead in IT in the future will be those with a growing understanding of the internationalisation of their work.”

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