Home > News > December 2004 > 10-Dec-2004

BCS succeeding in quest for younger membership

New figures to be released by the British Computer Society (BCS) this month indicate that the average age of its membership application profile has fallen from 37 years to 29 years in just seven months.

According to new BCS membership figures, the average age of a BCS Fellow - the most eminent level of membership - has fallen from 58 years to 43. While the average age for full membership or MBCS level has fallen from 40 years to 33 and affiliate membership from 41 years to 31.

The BCS also report an increase in its membership recruitment by over 20 per cent. According to the BCS, since it launched a major new marketing programme designed to effect greater representation of Britain's IT workforce, 7,500 have joined the Society, of which 5000 are registered as full time IT professionals.

BCS chief executive David Clarke, who set the new membership agenda for the Society, has expressed his determination for greater inclusion of the whole IT profession within the Society, acknowledging that the profession has many new roles, competencies and experience. The BCS say that bringing these new skills into its membership is critical to its plans to become the voice for the whole of the IT profession.

In outlining his vision for the future of the IT profession, David Clarke said, "Over the last twenty years, IT has been one of the fastest changing professions witnessed by the industrial age; driven by the continuous development in technology. Yet I believe that the likely changes over the next decade will even outpace all previous ones.

"A number of factors will drive this change, including globalisation of supply with the move of some activities to cheaper markets, but mostly a growing awareness that IT does not work in its own discreet world. For IT enabled projects to be successful in future, the IT profession will need to become more integral to the markets it is serving. Future skill requirements are going to be about the application of technology rather than simply the writing of programming codes. Only those professionals who understand the need to develop their skills in entirely new areas will score true successes.

"These changes to the skills of IT professionals will also underpin a revolution in the future success rates of IT enabled projects. Not only will IT professionals with these skills be more successful but so will the businesses they work for. Although most IT professionals will have to take their own career development into their own hands, the BCS understands its key role in helping its members and the wider IT profession achieve these career path changes."

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