Obtained by think tank Parliament Street, the FOI provides insight into how major government departments, including the Home Office, have boosted in-house IT talent to continue providing public services during the Covid-19 outbreak.
From 1,225 permanent members of IT staff in 2019, this amount rose to 1,523 in 2020, with an extra 298 employees onboarded to the Home Office Digital, Data and Technology team.
Conversely, temporary IT staff working for the department was found to decrease year-on-year, from 197 in 2019 to 134 in 2020.
The most popular full-time IT roles within the Home Office last year were in strategic tech disciplines, with 97 technology project managers, 92 infrastructure engineers and 80 service managers being present.
Other frequent job roles, according to the FOI, included:
- Operation analysts (78);
- Business analysts (72);
- Software engineers (70).
In addition, the department had 25 permanent employees working as data scientists, with an additional 15 working in data engineering roles, while a further 36 jobs were in DevOps.
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Commenting on the discovery, Sridhar Iyengar, managing director at Zoho Europe, said: “It’s encouraging to see organisations like the Home Office boosting in-house IT skills, particularly at a time when technology is playing such a crucial role in delivering vital services during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“With millions of people now working from home, having access to the latest technology to manage tasks, collaborate and deliver work remotely is a top priority for all organisations.
“Digital skills are set to play a critical role in the economic recovery, so having a talented team that can recruit, train and support the next generation is also an important step forward.”
