There could be 80,000 British IT vacancies unfilled by 2003 and Brighton's new media firms already face fierce competition to attract graduates.

This according to computer consultants Spectrum.

So why are skilled older staff being overlooked?

With ten years' experience as an IT systems analyst, Caroline, of Ringmer, thought she was ideally placed for a career in the fast-growth, big-money world of internet development.

Fifteen job applications and no successes later, she found out she was wrong.

One recruitment agency not only told her she was too old for a dotcom job at 37 but asked whether she knew anyone younger to fill its vacancies.

She said: "When dotcoms say there's a skills shortage, they mean there's a shortage of youngsters."

New media firms did not want to pay to retrain people with old-fashioned IT skills to use internet programming languages such as HTML and Java.

Companies who had to stop development because of lack of staff would be better off investing in training.

Peter Skyte, head of the IT Professions Association, part of the MSF union, said: "In our experience, older IT workers are not considered favourably by dot coms and established firms.

"There's a syndrome in IT that if you are over 50 you're over the hill."

He said workers who were made redundant or took maternity leave soon found their skills outdated.

"It is not unlawful to discriminate on grounds of age in the UK but it is likely European legislation will change that soon," he said.

Jessica Bone, information and research co-ordinator for the Employers Forum on Age, a network of firms combating age discrimination, said: "There are a lot of people who are IT-trained but in the wrong packages.

"It is a widespread problem in an industry with a big skills shortage which is recruiting abroad.

"A lot of dotcom businesses have little if any sophisticated human resources function."

Rod Crothall, managing director of Brighton IT agency Synergy.com, admitted older workers with outdated skills were likely to come second best to well-trained college leavers.

He said: "If clients can find a graduate with web skills, then they will grab them.

"They know even if they train someone, that financial investment might have to be kissed goodbye."

But he warned those graduates would have to keep themselves trained in the latest technologies to avoid losing out to the next generation of students.

He said firms did realise the value of older workers.

"If you bring someone on with hands-on business experience, they can bring a lot to the table."

Despite the experience of Caroline, IT firms were now drawing on and training experienced IT talent, said Sheila Mansell, marketing manager of Brighton-based IT firm FDM.

The very skills shortages which companies were bemoaning would mean if age barriers did exist they would have to be dropped.

"There are so many highly skilled and highly talented people in Brighton who have become unemployed and unskilled," she said.

"We do get older programmers applying for our courses and they are welcome because they come with a background."

FDM is now retraining Garry Fournel, 46, who was out of work for a year after his contract working on mainframe computers at a credit card company ended.

He said: "When the Y2K business ended, it was like being a world expert in turboprop engines and finding out everyone had bought jets.

"I saw a lot of former colleagues at the jobcentre."

Luckily, staff at FDM spotted Mr Fournel at the jobcentre and signed him up for training in web programming languages such as ASP and Java.

He is now looking forward to a new career.

Sussex Enterprise and FDM are offering free web design programming courses for those who have been out of work for six months or who have been made are available. Details are available in jobcentres.