IT services
Software and IT Services
Description
The term software is used to describe the digital instructions and operating information that are contained in programs serving to guide machines – especially computers. Software is created from source code, which consists of sequences of statements and declarations written in special computer programming languages.
IT service vendors provide computer system support, consulting and internet-related services to businesses and consumers.
The UK has attracted large multinational inward investors resulting in US companies predominating in the UK: IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard are all household names. Key UK players include Logica, Sage and Capita. Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Infosys are prominent Indian companies.
Importance to the Economy
Software and IT services are central to the UK economy and a key source of competitiveness for all sectors; opening up new markets, increasing performance and driving productivity. The UK’s IT industry alone produces an annual GVA of £30.6 billion, 3% of the total UK economy. According to a report from Sector Skills Council, e-skills UK, the continued adoption and exploitation of IT has the capacity to generate an additional £35 billion of GVA to the UK economy over the next 5 to 7 years.
In the UK 1.2 million people are employed in the IT workforce (597,000 in the IT industry itself and 650,000 IT professionals working in other industries). These are the people upon which the 22 million employees who use IT in their daily work rely upon for the creation, implementation and operation of systems, services and communications, forming the backbone of companies across the UK.
IT is not only a highly innovative and economically important sector in its own right, but it is often also an important element of innovation in other sectors. Many process and structural innovations depend heavily on organisational changes that are facilitated by software and IT services innovations. Such changes can be a major driver of productivity improvements.
Skills
Skills are a key driver of productivity. Employers want employees with the right IT skills to do their jobs. We are working with the Sector Skills Council for the IT and telecoms sectors, to bring about change in support of the business voice and to increase productivity and competitiveness.
We are also working with SEMTA, the sector skills council covering manufacturing, science and engineering, to ensure that UK electronics and photonics companies have the skills they need to be competitive in global markets..
Innovation
Organisations active in Electronics and IT Services need to maintain high levels of innovation in order to survive in today’s highly competitive business environment.
Innovation can manifest itself in many different ways, but in the high-technology businesses involved in Electronics and IT Services, Research and Development activities are often regarded as amongst the highest priorities.
To ensure our interests are well represented in the development of the national technology strategy, we work closely with the Technology Strategy Board (T S B).The TSB, which is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by us, provides financial programmes of support for collaborative R&D projects that align with the national technology strategies. The sector as a whole has benefited considerably from such support since the TSB programmes were first launched in 2004.
The Knowledge Transfer Networks (K T N's), now funded by the TSB, provide an essential channel for communications between us and relevant parts of the Electronics and IT services sector. EITSU maintains particularly close links with the Electronics KTN and the Photonics KTN.
In addition to TSB’s national support programmes for R&D, the European Commission Framework 7 Programme commits sizeable funding to activities relevant to the Electronics and IT Services sector. Our unit interfaces with relevant parts of the industry and the Commission to shape the content of, in particular, the ARTEMIS programme on embedded systems, and the Photonics 21 programme.
