As the importance of IT skills in society becomes ever clearer, the academic knowledge of the technology should be encouraged in children by their parents, it has been emphasised.

Tudor Aw, a technology partner at audit network KPMG, said that people joining the company have an "absolutely phenomenal" level of computer literacy, which separates the competition with ease when they are hiring.

Making his comments to the Intellect Annual Regent Conference 2009, Mr Aw added that if anything, computer skills are much better to have than academic qualifications as it has more of an immediate impact on skills in the workplace and at leisure.

He continued: "Make sure your children are growing up being part of this whole society. Obviously we've got to be careful with that but ... it's great, embrace it."

These ideals are being applied to schools and educational establishments around the country through Becta, the government's agency for IT in education, which launched its first charter in January to get every child into the digital fold.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.