There is a lack of awareness among businesses about the risk of a mainframe skills gap developing in the coming years, an expert has said.

Neil Richards, European mainframe director at Compuware, said that chief information officers (CIOs) will struggle to fill IT jobs in this area due to the fact that these applications are complicated and difficult to understand.

He cited the example of one of his customers who has built up a local application so complicated it would take a competent mainframe-skilled individual as long as three years to truly understand it.

Mr Richards stated that CIOs will have to face the issue sooner or later.

"Although 71 per cent of CIOs see this as a business problem, any CIO responsible for mainframe business will have a problem with this in the future in one way, shape or form," the expert went on to add.

A recent study conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Compuware found that 58 per cent of CIOs are worried that the skills shortage will lead to increased application risks.

Posted by Fiona Summers