Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
The pace of job growth in IT may be slowing down, but its still moving at a strong clip.
A healthy 24% of the respondents to Computerworlds 2015 Forecast survey said that their
companies plan to add more IT employees in the year ahead. While down from 32% and 33% in
the previous two years, the fact that a number of employers still anticipate growth indicates that
the prospects for expansion in the IT ranks are good.
Moreover, the kinds of technical skills in high demand are those needed for enterprises in
expansion mode, suggesting that organizations are continuing to invest in their IT infrastructures.
There are large initiatives [underway], and you have to have the people to get those done, says
Jason Hayman, market research manager at TEKsystems, an IT staffing and consulting firm.
Heres a look at the 10 IT skills that the 194 IT executives who responded to our survey said will
be most in demand heading into 2015.
1. Programming/application development
48% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 1
As was the case last year and the year before that, IT departments are more likely to have job
openings for programmers and developers than for any other position.
Programming certainly tops the list of skills sought by Blake K. Holman, senior vice president
and CIO at Ryan LLC, a Dallas-based tax services firm. Like many others, hes looking for
developers who can move his organization forward. But, given the demand, hes struggling to
find the talent he requires. Its been very difficult to find folks with good development skills,
he says, explaining that he can find workers with some development aptitude, but landing
programmers and developers with enough experience to handle the scale and complexity his
company demands is challenging.
Download this story and others in Computerword's November digital magazine!
2. Project management
35% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 5
Demand for project managers jumped four spots up the list this year, and that doesnt surprise
Leon Kappelman, lead researcher for the Society for Information Managements (SIM) IT Trends
Study.
Darren Ghanayem
There is some catching up going on now, because there was so little investment in recent years,
he says, noting that companies need project managers who can oversee large projects that span
the enterprise. Darren Ghanayem, vice president and CIO in the commercial and specialty
business division of Indianapolis-based health benefits provider WellPoint, says the list of
complex initiatives on deck has created more demand for solid project management expertise.
That has him turning what were outsourced jobs into staff positions, and he, too, says finding the
right talent is challenging.
Good project managers need a mix of business and technology acumen along with the ability to
bridge those two areas, he says. They also need experience in leading teams using specific
methodologies, such as agile and waterfall. And Ghanayem specifically needs people who know
how to move a traditional waterfall shop to an agile one. Given such intense requirements, he
says its not surprising that demand for project managers is on the rise.
4. Security/compliance governance
28% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 7
Executives and board members are willing to spend more money on security because security
breaches are making headlines these days. SIMs research shows that IT departments are beefing
up their security ranks; security ranked seventh on the organizations list of most significant IT
investments for 2014.
Cynthia Nustad, enterprise vice president and CIO at HMS, an Irving, Texas-based provider of
cost containment services to healthcare payers, says organizations like hers face an everincreasing number of threats. So shes expanding her security team, which has already nearly
tripled in size during the past five years. She says shes seeking more specialized security talent;
the positions shes filling include one focused on incident management and another focused on
threats and vulnerabilities.
The demand to secure data is paramount, and the people who understand security the
architects, engineers or subject-matter experts are very hard to find, Nustad says.
5. Web development
28% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: Not ranked
Matt Leighton, director of recruitment at Mondo, a tech staffing agency, says that Web
development expertise is one of the hardest skill sets to find. The influx of demand has not been
met with the talent readily available there is a gap in terms of what the companies want to do
and the talent that is out there to execute these initiatives, he says.
6. Database administration
26% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 6
Database administration is a tried-and-true IT role one thats always needed in any
organization. But the buzz around big data is whats driving much of todays demand for people
with this skill. Youve got the ability to crunch massive amounts of data, but you still need to
understand how your database has been put together, says Terry Erdle, executive vice president
for certifications and learning at CompTIA, a wireless industry trade group.
In fact, IT staffing firm Robert Half Technologys latest IT Hiring Forecast and Local Trend
Report, released this past summer, found that 52% of U.S. technology executives listed database
management as the skill set in greatest demand within their IT departments.
7. Business intelligence/analytics
24% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 8
Given the enterprise interest in big data these days, its no surprise to see IT executives list BI
and analytics among their most sought-after skills. Jackson says BravoTech clients consistently
tell him theyre seeking people with BI and analytics expertise as they get more deeply involved
in data analysis projects. And respondents to the Computerworld Forecast survey who said they
plan to add IT positions in the next 12 months listed BI/analytics expertise as the skill set they
expect to have the hardest time finding.
9. Networking
22% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 3
According to the recent Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Forecast and Local Trend Report,
57% of U.S. technology executives said network administration tops the list of skills needed in
their organizations. Thats in line with the staffing needs at the University of Pennsylvania,
where IT leaders in the Information Systems & Computing department listed networking among
the seven skills that they need most. Theyre looking for people with expertise in IP routing,
switching, firewall filtering, packet capture and packet tracing/debugging, optical networking,
network management, and virtual environments and integration.