It seems that last year, a measly 210 youngsters applied to study computer science at Cambridge, and disgusted profs were forced to accept 70 of them. They prefer to reject a higher proportion; in 2000, back in the good old days, 500 applied and 400 were turned down.
“We want potential students to know that the burst of the bubble is well and truly over,” said Professor Andy Hopper, head of the Cambridge computer lab.
“There is a shortage of computer scientists in this country, jobs to be filled and the chance to get rich.”^
If it’s such a good job, these big lapses in finding people to fill it could be the problem. I believe the answer is quite honestly that most people know how computer scientists are at the beck and call of industry and a somewhat reckless management, so they’re often working late hours around under-socialized people on products that are less than useful. This is why given a chance between an MBA and a CS degree, more people are choosing the former.
From what I’ve seen in the industry here, the real shortage is of competent project managers. We’re importing most of our coders, except for a few grizzled veterans who are kept around as knowledge repositories, but the lack of product and project managers who can get a quality job done on time is what sinks projects more than an inability to find programmers, because whether foreign or native-born, we’re awash in those.