Your IT skills are out-of-date and threatening the success of business growth. So says analyst Gartner, which suggests traditional technical skills will not suit the burgeoning demand for developing IT and business together.

“What constitutes qualified people will change," says Gartner vice president and Fellow Diane Morello. "The intersection of business models and IT requires people with varied experience, professional versatility, multidiscipline knowledge and technology understanding – a hybrid professional, in other words."

Hybrid, eh? Sounds a bit robotic; a bit modern. Andy Kyte, vice president and Gartner Fellow, says there aren't enough of these hybrids about - in fact, he says the impact for business could be, well, catastrophic: “This is a massive and devastating skills shortage and it is coming when there is a surge in the number of projects that are required from IT.”

Gartner says there is a real shortages of people with general qualifications, experience and business insight. The focus is on understanding and managing business processes and technology, skills which take time to mature.

While Gartner are undoubtedly right, there's nothing exceptionally original in the announcement: for a start, the skills crisis is common knowledge. E-skills UK recently revealed the IT sector is expanding at such a rate that 140,000 new staff will be needed annually for the next five years to fill high-level positions, on top of the 1.5 million people already employed in the industry.

It's also common knowledge that IT workers need to become more aware of business requirements, just like the business needs to become more aware of the abilities of IT. It is, in short, a two-way street (see Further reading, below: IT needs to show the boss it means business).

As Dr Sharm Manwani, associate professor at Henley Management College, told me the other day, the business use of technology is now a real priority for IT professionals. Finding ways to make that message stick - and to provide useful systems and processes for users - is the key.

Further reading

• IT needs to show the boss it means business
• Depressed technology professionals need a boost
• Is IT always a business issue?
• The end of computer science?
• Is studying computer science a waste of time?
• The adventures of a technology career

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