Bangalore: Even as the third world countries like India and China are economically thriving by taking advantage of the off-shoring jobs, the West, especially Great Britain is taking the negative impact of the phenomenon. The off-shoring of the low level IT jobs to the so called low-cost locations has led to a fall in the graduate opportunities in Britain as firms are reluctant to invest in the under-skilled workforce. The situation has resulted in skyrocketing of mid-level pay rates.

While IT user support techies, on an average, received a pay hike of 13 percent to 24,177 pounds, systems engineers saw a 9.5 percent jump to 31,120 pounds in the past year. Meanwhile, IT project leaders' pay was up by 23 percent in just five years to 47,605 pounds, according to Income Data Services' (IDC) latest findings on IT pay for 2008.

"The sizeable pay increases we are seeing in mid-level IT support and technical roles are being driven largely by acute skills shortages," the editor of the IDS report Ken Mulkearn was quoted as saying by Channelregister.com. Mulkearn added that outsourcing overseas has led to fewer opportunities for graduates and others to get a job in IT.

A number of employers' groups have been saying that they are expecting a dismal time ahead in the jobs market because of a rise in redundancies accompanied by a downturn in recruitment.

Earlier this month the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said that Britain's brightest kids should be required to study three separate science courses in secondary school to offset a shortage of employees in the IT and science sectors.