15 Hot Skill Sets For IT Pros In 2015
How do your IT skills stack up against the ones with the greatest market demand? Here's what our experts have to say.
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The technology world loves its buzzwords, no doubt. If you dig through the hype and hit upon the substance that lies beneath, however, you might be onto career-building gold.
Take DevOps, for instance: It's been among the buzzier terms in and around IT lately. But if you go deeper than the surface, and take note of some of the skills and technologies that DevOps environments increasingly need and make use of, your list will begin to look a lot like the lists that hiring managers and recruiters put together when seeking new talent.
Consider the configuring and provisioning automation tool Puppet, for example, or project management and issue tracking application JIRA. Neither one of these is a "DevOps tool," per se, but they are both increasingly found in DevOps environments, or ones that simply run on Agile development or comparable "continuous delivery" methodologies.
Tech job site Dice gave InformationWeek a rundown of the IT job skills that have seen the greatest increases in the number of open positions listed on its site from January 2014 to January 2015. These are drawn from any category with at least 1,000 positions listed. JIRA has seen a 69% jump in the number of listings in that time period, while Puppet saw a 67% increase, making them two of the site's top three fastest-growing tech skills areas.
In other cases, as with security -- the No. 1 fastest-growing tech skills area, according to Dice -- the hype itself may be a key indicator of job market and hiring trends. The security field continues to dominate headlines. The Anthem breach is just the latest in a long string of high-profile security incidents. So, it should surprise exactly no one that security skills will be in very high demand in 2015 and beyond.
Dice makes a distinction between two closely related security terms. It defines "cyber-security" as focusing on defending assets, such as networks and endpoints, from threats like denial-of-service attacks or malware, and "information security" as focusing on protecting data and privacy. In either case, hiring demand is way, way up: Cyber-security is the No. 1 fastest-growing skill area on Dice, up 91% in listings from January 2014 to January 2015. Demand for Information security skills increased 48% during the same period.
"Skill [and] technology popularity is very reflective of current events," said Dice president Shravan Goli in an interview with InformationWeek. "The multitude of security breaches that we have seen in the past few years has caused companies to want to be extra-cautious. That is, in part, why professionals with security skills, such as cyber-security or information security, are in such high demand."
Security is one of the hottest fields for IT recruiters this year. "Security is a huge issue. Mobile and cloud computing is everywhere," said Laura McGarrity, VP of digital marketing and recruiting firm Mondo, in an interview with InformationWeek. McGarrity lists "security architect" and "security engineer" among her most sought-after titles this year. "Users are now connected on multiple devices, with multiple endpoints, making it tough to manage security risks.
If you want to ensure your skills stay sharp, it certainly pays to keep tabs on emerging and, dare we say, trendy technologies, as well as on the technology news headlines. That doesn't mean every marketable IT skill is a buzzword. In fact, far from it. Java developers are still highly employable. (The language remains ubiquitous in enterprise IT.) Ditto for those with Web development and open source skills. Yet, it can be extra beneficial -- and potentially lucrative -- to round out these "old" skill areas with newer technologies.
Tom Renda, VP for the New England region at recruiting firm Eliassen Group, told us that developers who've added Hadoop experience to their resumes aren't hurting for job prospects these days. "Open source developers, Java developers, and Web developers are all in high demand. When they have Hadoop experience as well, they are highly sought after in the big data and analytics space."
Read on for 15 of the hottest skills and technologies that IT employers want in the next 12 months (and beyond). We tried to be as specific as possible. For example, while "software developer" tops just about everyone's list of in-demand IT skills, it's a bit broad. On the following pages, you'll see above each image the specific technologies, skills, or sample job titles, with details on the broader job category appearing below the image. Got your own predictions, or on-the-ground experiences? Share them with us in the comments section below.
Job titles range from security architect to the relatively recent executive suite addition of the CSO or CISO. There's never been a better time to be a qualified security pro -- at least from the standpoint of employability. Cyber-security was the fastest-growing skill area in terms of employer demand on tech jobs site Dice from January 2014 through January 2015, with its close cousin information security not too far behind.
Interest in IT pros experienced with the project management and issue-tracking software from Atlassian spiked 69% on Dice in the 12 months ending Jan. 31, 2015, as more organizations adopted either Agile development approaches or a full-blown DevOps makeover.
NoSQL database know-how is another quick ticket to job interviews these days. Demand for this skill category jumped 49% from January 2014 to January 2015, according to Dice. There's a range of NoSQL options, but the open source MongoDB has proven popular as a recruiting search term. Job search site Indeed.com lists MongoDB as the No. 2 keyword in terms of growth on its site during the past several years.
Renda from Eliassen said that mobile remains one of four foundational technologies -- alongside cloud, social, and analytics -- driving the hiring needs of the recruiting firm's clients this year. As a result, Android developers (don't worry, iOS fans -- you're up next) are regularly in the hiring crosshairs.
Of course, Renda included iOS developers on his list of commonly sought job titles among Eliassen's mobile clients, too. Like Android, iOS has been one of the fastest-growing (third overall) terms on Indeed.com job listings over the past several years.
Employer interest in IT pros who know Puppet Labs' flagship automation and configuration management tool shot skyward, increasing 67% from January 2014 to January 2015. This was due, in part, to growing interest in DevOps -- or at least DevOps-like approaches to building, testing, delivering, and maintaining software.
Demand for Hadoop skills grew 54% on Dice during the past 12 months, as did employer interest in big data expertise as a broader category. Renda, of Eliassen, noted that developers with chops in languages such as Java who add Hadoop experience will be particularly attractive to recruiters and hiring managers going forward.
The Python programming language's rising popularity among developers corresponds with increasing interest among hiring companies, too. Python cracked the top 10 fastest-growing skills areas on Dice during the months ending Jan. 31, 2015, with a 29% bump on ads for this skill posted on the jobs site.
Java may not have the new-and-shiny appeal of some others skills and technologies here, but sometimes "boring" is a strong suit. Java continues to be mainstream in enterprise IT environments, and there's a corresponding demand among employers. In fact, as of January 2015, Dice had some 16,000 available positions requiring or requesting Java skills on any given day.
Pictured: James Gosling, Java creator.
Data-driven businesses absolutely need IT pros who can mine, manage, and store massive data sets, whether with Hadoop or other technologies. But they have an equally pressing need for people who can make actionable business sense of the data, too -- otherwise, there's little real value, especially to the C-Suite and on non-technical teams. Whether listed under "data analyst" or comparable title, the ability to derive business value from the numbers is going to be a pressing concern for hiring managers going forward.
"Analytics are embedded everywhere," said McGarrity of Mondo. "It's critical to have the resources who can analyze and drive strategy from the data and numbers."
In concert with rising demand for technical and analytical skills elsewhere in the big data universe, Dice found mounting employer interest in experience with specific platforms -- in this case, Teradata's big data, data warehousing, and analytics applications and services. Teradata saw a 33% increase in advertised positions on Dice between January 2014 and January 2015, making it the ninth fastest-growing skill area on the site.
Open source experience and contributions continue to rate highly with IT employers, especially those with significant big data and cloud initiatives on the books. Think along the lines of the aforementioned Hadoop, of course, but don't forget about the broader ecosystem around it, which includes projects such as Cassandra, Hive, and Pig. Linux is another place to look, and the NoSQL world (see also: MongoDB) offers open source opportunities as well.
According to Eliassen's Renda, top-notch user experience and user interface (UX/UI) designers rate highly alongside developers on hiring wish lists. The reason? Employers are obsessed with creating first-rate Web and mobile apps that appeal to younger consumers -- Millennials, especially -- as they grow older and their buying power increases.
Like Java in some respects (and unlike it in others), .NET has been a mainstay on many IT resumes for both desktop application development and, in the case of ASP.NET, Web application development as well. You won't find it on the "fastest-growing" lists because it's been around a while, but it remains very much in demand, something unlikely to change in the near future. Employers responding to a January 2015 survey on Dice listed .NET as one of the toughest skills or roles to fill, ranking it No. 3 (No. 1 was software developer/software engineer, and No. 2 was Java).
As far as buzzwords and IT trends go, virtualization seems bland these days. But virtualization skills remain keenly sought after by employers, according to Renda, particularly when they intersect with cloud computing experience. Both Eliassen and Dice point to VMware as the one of the most common platform-specific searches, though obviously it's not the only game in town.
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