Small companies are loath to hire IT graduates because they are perceived as lacking important business skills, a new report suggests.

Research from computing.co.uk shows that 20 per cent of companies think that IT graduates will not have skills needed to be useful in the real business world.

As a result of this, 70 per cent of IT graduates have to take up work in an unrelated career.

This is despite the fact that there are more than 150,000 IT jobs which need to be filled every year in the UK and many reports claim there is a skills shortage in the sector.

The website warned that the situation could mean that the UK will fail to produce the next generation of IT experts if businesses do not change how their view current graduates.

A statement read: "Hiring graduates has always been a mixed blessing. On the plus side, they are cheap, malleable and keen to learn. But, there are also downsides not least that they lack hands-on experience, and the wider skills such experience brings.

Both learning institutions and employers now have a responsibility to encourage IT graduates into work, the statement added

A recent report pointed out that the UK was also failing to train enough female IT workers.