Cast your mind back to the days of the dot-com explosion and the bursting of the bubble in 2000. Before the bubble burst, pretty much anybody who was doing anything online got interest and often money from investors. Today, things are different. Proliferation of technology in the world of business has been unimaginably fast. Enterprises deploy technologies with much more focus on achieving a business outcome. These include the application of technology to harness and analyze data, let employees connect to the business engine from anywhere, understand what customers want before the customers say it out loud, and automate processes to get things done cheaper, better, and quicker.
No wonder demand for IT skills is at all-time high, with unmatched potential for techies with niche skills. What are the hottest IT skills that enterprises need and will make you in demand if you possess them? Read on.
Hottest IT skills: Software engineers
In spite of the strong enterprise commitment to buy vs. build, when it comes to core enterprise systems, the need to get coding done will always be there. The longevity of this business-IT reality implies that good software engineers have stable and empowered careers waiting for them.
At the moment, there’s a market crunch in terms of good software engineering skills. To bridge the demand supply gap, enterprises and academic institutions are enabling code camps, focused short-duration degrees, online training programs, and certifications.
The only real force that can close this demand/supply gap (favorable to software engineers) is the automation of coding via code-bots. Enterprises would do well to empower software engineers with modern development platforms, methods, processes, and frameworks.
Data scientists
Enterprises, and even small and medium-sized businesses, are generating gigabytes of data every day. Customer databases, product databases, pricing trends, demand analysis, customer feedback scores, inventory statistics — the kind of data that sits in an enterprise’s database is unimaginably massive.
Data analytics has been a buzzword from more than five years now, and still most enterprises agree that they have a lot left to do to get information out of their data. A data scientist is not only adept at working with data analytics technologies, but also has business insight and statistical data analyses and modeling expertise, all of which fuse to create a highly valued skill for an IT-heavy enterprise and make this category one of the hottest IT skills valued by enterprises.
Cybersecurity professionals
Cybersecurity is an ever-evolving threat for an enterprise, and the only way to combat it is to keep the cybersecurity skill-sets of your IT department up to date. Enterprises and SMBs are increasingly looking to hire security professionals to make infrastructure and data security practices a part of the routine workday, instead of a reactive activity. There’s increasing focus on transforming enterprise security into a bottom-up approach, which can be driven by having security professionals at each level.
Individuals with coveted certifications such as Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) literally have more options than they would care to count — that’s how big the void is for qualified people.
Cloud/SaaS professionals
Migration of IT systems to the cloud has been the biggest game changer in the IT-powered business environment in the past five years. The growth of the cloud is still on, and is continuing to create wonderful opportunities for IT professionals with expertise in these technologies. Enterprises are especially hungry for individuals with more than one SaaS or cloud computing skill.
Cloud platform software engineers, AWS engineers, cloud architects, and DevOps engineers — all these bring a gamut of skills to an enterprise, and hence command enviable salaries. Even traditional job ads for system administrators and network engineers are being replaced by ads for these engineers with cloud experience.
Big Data
Make no mistake, enterprises are still on the lookout for individuals with experience in specific Big Data technologies like Hadoop and Oracle, as well as Big Data pros who know focused languages like Scala. There’s a shift toward hiring Big Data experts with experience in specific markets and industries to tap their experience and skill to drive value for business.
Web development
Considering how critical web-based platforms are for enterprises to connect with customers, executives, managers, business directors, contractors, technicians, and vendors, it’s a good bet that web development will be a staple for years to come. Talented web developers have conventionally enjoyed decent average salaries, with continuous and considerable hikes as they continue to add value to an enterprise.
Companies are adding social and mobile platforms to their IT systems portfolio, which makes web developers the “critical” workforce component again. Full-time web developers as well as contractors have exciting prospects, particularly those with expertise in frontend development. Web developers with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript expertise, along with the self-drive to keep on learning the latest web development languages, enjoy fulfilling careers in enterprises.
Project managers
The average enterprise’s IT system’s complexity is only going to get higher. Cloud solutions (public, private, hybrid), cybersecurity solutions, ever-changing development paradigms such as DevOps, novel technology platforms such as machine learning and virtual reality, the next wave of automation, Internet of Things — you get the idea.
CIOs and CISOs need reliable project managers who have experience in handling complicated IT projects, have the vision to connect IT with business goals, and have highly relevant certifications to back their resumes up. Considering the critical nature of this role, the high cost of failure, and the need to retain bright project managers, enterprises invest time and money in filling these positions, which is why they belong on the list of hottest IT skills.
Looking for innovators
It’s understandable that there’s a school of thought in business consultancy that envisages each business as essentially a technological enterprise. IT hiring, hence, has become a major determiner of the fate of a business. Enterprises that can gradually build, grow, and sustain a large pool of IT talent and expertise across technologies are able to leverage novel IT innovations better and faster than competitors. If you possess any of these hottest IT skills, you are in demand.
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