Building open source skills for the region

Open source software is no longer the preserve of a select group of developers. It has evolved to support a wide range of applications and is being increasingly adopted by businesses of all sizes. A core set of four platforms, Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP), is gaining in importance. In fact, a research project carried out in early 2008 found that the majority of UK developers would prefer to work in an open source environment and more than 40% of them felt that the LAMP stack is beginning to threaten established applications*.

 

The Open Source Academy is an initiative developed jointly by nti Leeds and Yorkshire Forward in reaction to demand from employers for open source skills. Businesses in key sectors such as finance and engineering, as well the creative and digital industries, are already experiencing a shortage of these skills and demand is expected to increase as open source platforms become more widely adopted.

 

Tom Walton, Manager – Portal Services at Orange, comments, “Development on the LAMP stack has been growing exponentially during the past 5-6 years, especially since the advent of PHP 4 and more recently PHP 5.  As a consequence, the skills and abilities of developers in this area are improving, but many businesses including Orange still aren’t seeing a large enough pool of graduate level entrants possessing sufficiently rounded object orientated PHP skills (jn comparison to Java) to enable them to ‘hit the ground running’.”  

 

Geoffrey Gifford, nti Manager, Leeds, explains, “The Open Source Academy is targeting both SMEs and larger enterprises to facilitate training to the LAMP stack. The first segment has involved developing and delivering the new Zend-certified training model for PHP and this will lead to the rest of the stack. The training has been very well received.”

 

Employer involvement is key to the success of the Academy. An independent employer group is being set up that will have specific tasks relating to agreeing and influencing the content of the training provision. It is also hoped that these employers will send their own staff for training and offer student placements. The Academy aims to create partnerships with other OS vendors like Zend to take advantage of the training packages they are developing.

 

“There is an important awareness element to the Academy as well,” Geoffrey Gifford continues. “Open source has grown, but suffered from barriers around support and training. Increasing the availability of skills in the workforce will help overcome these barriers. Businesses need to know that these skills exist in the current workforce. They need to have confidence in adopting open source solutions as an alternative to off the shelf vendor software.”

 

Richard Greenwood, Learning & Skills Project Manager at Yorkshire Forward, says, “It is very novel to have continuous professional development in these skills focused in one place. The expectation is that there will be regional coverage from activity with a number of delivery partners across the region, not just in Leeds. There are also plans to incorporate the CPD modules into relevant undergraduate provision.”

 

Tom Walton concludes, “I welcome the creation of the Open Source Academy based at Leeds Metropolitan University, as I strongly believe that this will provide the next generation of developers with the core skills necessary to fulfil business needs in LAMP / Web 2.0 working environments.”

 

Geoffrey Gifford

nti Leeds

Old Broadcasting House

Woodhouse Lane

Leeds

LS2 9EN

 

T: 0845 122 1555

E: geoff@ntileeds.co.uk