The ITPro Podcast

Container technology has gone from a niche, experimental application and infrastructure tool to a cornerstone of modern IT transformation - but its explosion in popularity has resulted in a corresponding demand for skilled professionals to manage these deployments. Kubernetes certifications are particularly sought after, and holding one is almost a licence to print money for IT professionals. With...

Public sector organisations have a reputation for being somewhat behind the times when it comes to IT transformation, frequently hampered by tight budgets and Byzantine bureaucratic procurement procedures. However, while this reputation isn’t entirely unwarranted, the reasons behind it aren’t as straightforward as they might appear.  In this week’s episode, we’re looking at why public sector techn...

Burnout is a major problem within the IT industry. Technology professionals are frequently overworked and under-resourced, and the buildup of unmanaged workplace stress can have severe consequences for both the mental and physical health of workers. While some stress is unavoidable - particularly in fast-paced industries like IT - there are ways that managers and employers can help their staff avo...

The growth of major tech companies over the last decade has been seemingly unstoppable, but as organisations like Facebook, Microsoft and Google work their way ever deeper into our lives, the US government has set its sights on curtailing the worst of their perceived excesses. A number of bills have been introduced by both parties to try and limit their power in areas like data portability, market...

The cloud has built its success on the idea that it’s an easy route to cutting costs and reducing large-scale capital expenses, and while that can be true, the economic realities of moving to the cloud can often leave businesses with a bigger bill than they expected. In this IT Pro Podcast Special Edition, produced in association with Wasabi, we look at how much a cloud migration project really co...

Technical debt is one of the most dreaded concepts in enterprise IT; CIOs constantly struggle to stay on top of their technical debt and prevent it from accumulating out of control, and the knowledge that all of your shortcuts are going to catch up with you at some point is enough to keep any engineer awake at night. However, technical debt doesn’t always have to be bad, and there are ways for org...

We’ve all felt that sinking feeling, after our favourite operating system or piece of software gets a new update and we realise that the layout has changed and half the features don’t work like they used to. But why do we get so attached to our applications, and why do we find it so irksome when they change? In this week’s episode of the IT Pro Podcast, staff writer Bobby Hellard joins us to discu...

Whether it’s a SaaS tool, a product or even just a website, every IT team has to manage some form of customer-facing software. However, while it can be tempting to focus all the attention on the platforms that bring in the bacon, it’s equally important for IT teams to remember their internal customers; the colleagues that rely on IT to do their jobs. In this week’s episode, we learn about some of...

It’s fair to say that the US has a lot on its plate when it comes to cyber security. Criminal organisations and foreign operatives continue to find new ways to attack public businesses and private citizens, and as digital technology becomes more and more essential for everyday life, cyber attacks on critical infrastructure are becoming an increasingly troubling prospect. As digital aggression from...

Ever since the UK left the EU, data protection has been a hot topic. On the one side government officials on one side argue that current rules are unnecessarily restrictive, while on the other privacy campaigners maintain that any changes to legislation could make it harder for organisations to do business with EU partners. The solution to this conflict may lie in reinterpreting how we think about...

There was a time when an IT leader’s primary responsibility was managing tin, making sure that an organisation’s servers were kept up and running with little or no thought spared to how the rest of the business was using it. Those days are past now, and the modern CIO’s priorities have shifted. IT is now about business outcomes, and CIOs increasingly don’t care what their applications are running...

Getting hit with a large-scale cyber attack is a nightmare scenario for many IT leaders. Repairing the damage caused by hackers once they’ve infiltrated your system can be both expensive and time-consuming, and the post-breach fallout can be extremely challenging to deal with. But while the technical impact an attack like this can have is one thing, we often overlook the effect it has on the indiv...

This week marks the 100th episode of the IT Pro Podcast, and to celebrate the occasion, we’ve got a special bumper episode where we’ll be looking back over the last 100 years of technological development. We examine the inventions that have led up to the present day, the impact that they’ve had, and how current innovations may impact the future. Join us as we discuss the birth of Silicon Valley, t...

In a lot of cases, being an IT admin is as much about prioritisation as anything else, and the mantra ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is one that many technology professionals swear by. However, this approach leaves organisations at risk of having to suddenly fix critical errors with little notice. This is why many businesses have adopted observability, deepening the monitoring of their applicat...

The average smartphone tends to look fairly unassuming, but recently, foldable phones have injected a bit of diversity into the market. These eye-catching new devices include foldable screens, and are aimed at businesspeople and power users. But do foldable phones represent a genuine step forward for mobile technology, or are they simply a passing trend that will be swiftly forgotten? In this week...

In the business world, we often talk about ‘climbing the career ladder’ - and the unspoken implication is that everyone wants to eventually reach the top. In most organisations, this means ascending to some form of senior management or executive role, but what about those that would rather stay where they are? For many IT professionals, reaching a certain level of seniority results in graduating f...

For many IT professionals, the decision to move from a permanent position to a contractor or consultant role has given them more flexibility, better earning potential and a healthier work-life balance. There are those, however, who use legal loopholes to prey on IT contractors, lining their own pockets by cheating both them and HMRC out of rightful earnings. In this episode of the IT Pro Podcast,...

We all know how drastically COVID has up-ended normal working practices. Organisations had to radically rethink their strategies around digital business, remote working and much more. But after 18 months of breakneck digital transformation, what happens now? In this episode of the IT Pro Podcast, we’re looking at whether organisations should continue building on the efforts of the last year, or wh...

In the modern world, digital skills are absolutely essential, but if you don’t have access to technology, developing those skills is easier said than done. We’ve covered the UK’s growing digital divide in previous episodes, but this week, we’re looking at how one MSP is partnering with London-based charity CC Foundation to help close this gap by providing young people with access to digital device...

The healthcare sector is under a great deal of pressure right now, but while the pandemic has been a challenging time, it’s also led to an explosion in the adoption of digital healthcare tools. IT transformation is having a profound effect on the industry, as new technologies are revolutionising not just how care is delivered, but also how clinicians can track and even predict potential problems....

From talking to our friends to getting through our daily workload, there’s very little in modern life that doesn’t depend on the internet in some capacity. But while that’s all very well for most of us, a significant number of people in the UK have little or no access to the internet, and this can be a major problem for issues like skills, employment and more. This problem has not gone unnoticed,...

Cricket may have something of an old-fashioned reputation, with its genteel attire and somewhat languid pace, but just like every other sport, it’s in the process of being revolutionised by increasing use of digital technologies and data. Nowhere is this more evident than in Australia, where cricket remains an almost universal passion. In this week’s episode of the IT Pro Podcast, we talk to Micha...

On receiving the news that their planned apprenticeship had fallen through, most teenagers would probably sulk for a bit, and then start looking for jobs in a pub or a supermarket. What they probably wouldn’t do is decide to go it alone, opening up their own network maintenance company to help people boost their broadband. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what Sam O’Rourke did. He joins us this week t...

An inclusive workplace isn’t just about supporting people of different genders, sexual orientations or races. Almost 20% of the UK has some form of disability, and it’s important to make sure that our offices, applications and services are set up in a way that is accessible to these people. There are many reasons why this is a good idea; aside from being a legal requirement and a moral imperative,...

Data is taking on an increasingly important role within organisations around the world, but IT leaders have traditionally struggled to make staff truly understandable or engage with analytics and business intelligence. There are many options for how to approach this particular challenge, but for Nationwide’s business intelligence team, the answer lies in building a culture of self-service data con...