UK IT faces a Catch-22, according to Sam - an individual that recently posted a comment on this blog. Sam was responding to Duncan Aitchison, partner at outsourcing advisory specialist TPI, who says demand for bulk IT skills is depressed locally and that UK IT professionals should migrate towards management skills. Sam is not convinced by Aitchison's theory:

• He believes that as firms outsource technology work, fewer UK workers enter IT, which in turn causes a shortage
• Such shortages mean firms need to outsource more technology work, which inevitably leads to fewer and fewer people entering UK IT
• But Sam also believes UK technology workers cannot become management workers without first acquiring more basic, heavy-lifting IT skills

And therein lies a significant problem - with a significant UK IT skills gap, where will the next generation of technology managers come from?

The escalating skills crisis in the UK IT industry is growing five to eight times faster than other sectors and the sector needs 150,000 new entrants each year.

Many students have already realised the futility of studying computer science, with the number of students choosing IT-related degrees almost halving from 27,000 to 14,700 between 2001 and 2005. Mathematics and computer science also have the highest university dropout rate in the UK.

Over to Sam, again - who summarises succinctly, from his point of view, the intractable nature of the challenge: "Pretty soon, the driving and management will have to be outsourced as well," he says. "When that happens, the outsourcing price advantage disappears leaving you with same or higher cost structure than in-house, with none of the advantages of in-house."

Such postulations are forward-looking, extreme even. But is it really too outrageous to believe that chief information officers - operating under increasing financial and skills pressures - will search offshore for talented IT managers?