Asia Pacific: tackling the mainframe skills shortage on multiple fronts

I recently read an article that included this sentence: “To stop the current skills challenge from becoming a full-blown crisis, organizations need to nurture the next generation of mainframe workers.” Well, in my opinion, this is a global problem if not nearing a major issue that has been growing for over two decades. In Asia Pacific, there’s a serious lack of inhouse “younger generation” expertise and experience to help organizations manage and optimize the mainframe, as traditional mainframe support personnel start planning a timeline to retirement, or retirement is imminent, and graduates work diligently to try and catch up to the exiting knowledge base.

Why does it matter? It matters because the majority of the world’s top banks and Fortune 100 companies still depend on mainframes. Far from being dispensed with, today’s mainframes are being modernized and are becoming the hub for digital transformations and their processing cycles are increasing year on year. As a Forrester senior analyst put it, “Great technology doesn’t really go away.”.Business Wire, reporting on a 2024 Information Services Group (ISG) Provider Lens report on Asia Pacific’s mainframe sector, included this comment: “Companies in this region that had expected mainframes to become obsolete have found lasting value in their resilience and capacity.” But you can’t unlock that value without the right people and skills.

There was an interesting article on Planet Mainframe this year that signposted ways to build an internal mainframe talent pool. Many of the measures dovetailed with what we’re already doing within Vertali and in our wider sphere of influence. These include identifying high-potential candidates, providing easy-to-access mainframe training, mentoring, establishing a learning culture, and connecting with the wider mainframe community.

A longstanding advocate for talent development, Vertali’s primary focus is ensuring the right technical expertise exists to support mainframe installations. Our growth as a business is driven by this technical leadership, supported by a remarkable pool of consultants. It’s imperative to continue attracting, training, mentoring, and developing this technical capability. Our efforts include short-term tactical solutions to close the skills gap today, and a longer-term approach to nurture and develop the “mainframers” of tomorrow.

As previously mentioned, a large percentage of the mainframe workforce is currently, or will soon be, considering their retirement options, but still have a great deal to offer in terms of technical ability. Making the most of this valuable resource, we’ve achievedsuccess with our Grey Pool©. This dynamic on-demand people service harnesses the skills, experience and IP of senior mainframe consultants to offer consulting, project delivery and mainframe support, as well as mentoring the next generation of mainframers. We constantly assess and proactively manage this pool to ensure we always know the best person for the job. We can flex our team as needed, and always assign the right person to whatever the requirement is; operating system, database, storage, networks, security, scheduling, programming and more.

At the same time, our New To Z (NTZ) initiative positions Vertali as an active enabler of skills development, for client organizations and the wider mainframe community. NTZ is always seeking to identify, interview, assess and employ smart and enthusiastic interns, graduates and junior IT consultants with a desire to learn new and unique “things”, well to them anyway. Once employed, they are allocated to a team (such as systems programming, software or security) and assigned a mentor from our pool of experts to work with them, to rapidly upskill and align them with the ways of the mainframe. NTZs receive 6-9 months of preparation, followed by 12-18 months of mentoring and hands-on experience. After three years, they become bona fide mainframe professionals. Here are the stories of two such NTZ recruits.

In terms of the wider community, Vertali was one of the early members of the Mainframe Skills Council, the organization set up and supported by IBM to encourage the development of a skilled global community of mainframe talent. Member organizations include IBM clients, IBM partners, academia, user groups, not-for-profits, and open communities, collaborating to implement mainframe skills development. We also have a long history of engaging with and supporting industry bodies with a focus on people development. These include SHARE, the independent association that provides “education, professional networking and industry influence for the enterprise IT community”, and Guide Share Europe, which seeks to actively develop next-generation practitioners.

Of course, there are also technology solutions to help ease the skills shortage. Generative AI is already being used in various areas, including cybersecurity, modernization and operations. AI can increase productivity by, for example, scanning and modernizing code or guiding a systems person through complex tasks to implement new software or processes. And in observability, new tools are helping administrators to track and better understand system behavior and resource usage. These approaches are useful but are only part of the solution: we’ll always need talented people.

In April 2024, CIO Dive quoted John McKenny, VP and General Manager of Intelligent Z Optimization and Transformation at BMC Software, who said: “It’s about companies being ready to invest in recruiting and creating the right environment for young technologists.” This is precisely what Vertali is doing, while also providing short-term tactical solutions and mentoring to ease the skills shortage right now, and fast-track the ”next-gen” of mainframers. McKenny also said that BMC has seen the percentage of mainframe workers under the age of 30 increasing as those over 55 start to leave the workforce, and the number of women in the field has increased too. Maybe, just maybe, the tide is turning.

About the author

Regional Director for Vertali APAC, Dallas Newton has more than 45 years’ experience in the IT industry and is a well-known figure in the Australian market. His long career includes stints working with mainframes in Australia and the UK with organizations including ICL, Fujitsu, Broadcom (formerly CA) and as a business partner of IBM. Dallas was previously CEO of The Business Agility Group (Australia) Pty Ltd (TBAG) before embarking on a joint venture with Vertali UK in September 2023, rebranding the business as Vertali APAC Pty Ltd.