Future software development and education - a UK view

It could be said that with regard to software development and education that we live in interesting times. The UK´s Learning and Skills Council in partnership with the Department for Education and Skills and the Sector Skills Development Agency produced, in 2004 a four-volume report on Skills in England that includes information on the demand for skills in computing. In volume one, figures are given which show that Computing has been one of the strongest employment sectors in 1993-2003 and that it is predicted to increase further in the period 2003 to 2012. Also, the British Computer Society has recently reported significant increases in its membership. Yet within UK universities there is a general feeling of gloom about falling undergraduate numbers in computing. In the UK we have, in the University sector, a group - The Council of Professors and Heads of Computing (CPHC) which exists to promote public education in computing and its applications and to provide a forum for those responsible for management and research in university computing departments. Each year CPHC holds a conference to address issues that are relevant to the discipline. It also hosts an email list to support on-line discussions. The remainder of this paper highlights some of the issues raised at this year´s CPHC conference which was devoted to the Future of Computing and one of the on-line discussions that followed it.