Current IT Staff in the Egyptian Economy

    The overall number of staff involved in the Egyptian IT sector is approximately twelve to fifteen thousand.  This number is composed of an estimated seven to nine thousand technology professionals supporting corporate and government IT operations in various roles. Another five thousand are involved in domestic software and IT-specific industries.
(Included in this latter estimate are managers, programmers and project managers actively involved in the development and delivery of systems to local and international markets.) (Harvard Study)

The following assumptions were made to identify the 5,000 staff number. 

• 2,000 staff in multi-national firms such as IBM, Oracle, ICL, NCR
• 2,000 in Egyptian software and IT firms (average of 10 employees with around 130 firms in total)
• 1,000 in supporting firms providing training and consulting to the sector estimate that somewhere between (Ibid.)

    Currently Egypt has a serious shortage of staff, training and expertise in Project Management, Marketing and Sales, Middle Management, Business Analysts and some specific skill issues for programming staff.  This is a result of the youth of the IT industry, as well as, that of Egypt’s economic liberalization, both have not yet generated enough seasoned personnel to fill the demand.  Simultaneously, staff having the necessary prerequisites will leave and open a competitive organization. In response, many companies have increased salaries dramatically during the course of the last 12 months to retain their senior staff. (Ibid.)

    This shortage can not be addressed by an increase of university/training  graduates – the current demand  for demand for entry-level programmers does not exceed supply. In order to create the necessary infrastructure to stimulate the industry, sustained demand needs to be created. This will fund the development of skill sets and resources to increase Egypt’s Software industry growth