Luke Smith, former Queensland-based water supply company SunWater IT manager, said the typical IT manager has changed - "and not necessarily for the better".

"Five years ago most IT managers came from an evolved IT background; they used to know how the stuff worked and simply drifted into management," Smith told Computerworld Today. "This left them with a good understanding of the technology and people they were managing, if not the real business needs. Now, many IT managers have been brought in from non-IT areas so that IT can align itself better with the business. This leaves an IT team that is worried about service-level agreements (SLAs), but not so worried about IT-centric issues like DR and security."

Smith said he can only hope that in five years time there is some sort of happy medium where today's IT staff have evolved through strong, business-driven management yet still understand the more IT-centric details.

"They know the business wants tight SLAs and tight budgets; however, they also know how to convince the business that IT issues matter," he said.

Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority IT manager Virginia Orr agrees there was more emphasis on operational and technical skills five years ago. "Primarily because applications and systems required a much greater level of manual intervention," she said.