New technologies, new skills, and new demands

Technology is always changing and with any change, the skills also changes. Today with the emerging of mobile technology, cloud computing, security and big data analytics, demand for skills in these areas is exploding. Therefore there are huge training needs to meet these demands too. The technical skills that have highest demand in the industry are in mobile applications development, cloud computing services, network and computing security and Big data analytics. The top skills that are needed to manage these technologies are in Information System Management and IT project management.

Today, more telecommunication companies are simplifying their networks by separate hardware and software functionality using virtualization to improve network management in the software layer. They know that with more smartphones are being used; the best way to make money is no longer in hardware but in software and mobile applications. With more people are using smartphones in more places, the demand for IT security has never been higher. Among the highest paid positions are Cybersecurity specialists; Information System security specialists; Network security specialist. Since smartphones have limited storage capacity, more users are moving to cloud computing storage which makes it a new profitable area for telecommunication companies. Currently there is high demand for graduates in Information System Management (ISM) with Software-as-a-service (SaaS) knowledge and IT project management skills to manage cloud computing business.

Many traditional businesses as well as online businesses are finding new way to approach customers and gain competitive advantages by using business intelligence, Big data analytics to offer “special incentives” to lure customers to them. It also creates a high demand for people with skills in database administration, information system management, enterprise architecture and mobile development positions. As number of companies across industries is using Big data to identify and analyze customer behavior, demand for graduates with Big Data analytics skills such as Hadoop, NoSQL, R and Python programmers is also increasing.

Today more people are using smartphone as the new platform to do everything instead of personal computer. The need for mobile application development skills has increased over 25% in past year and will continues to rise in the next several years as the number of smartphones users increases. An analyst wrote: “As everything is quickly move to mobile, schools must change their training quickly to catch up as this is the skills that has high demand. If IT workers, school administration and business managers do not understand the impact of mobility, they will miss a good opportunity.”

All over the world, companies are actively going to colleges to recruit mobile application development graduates. A manager explains: “There is a shortage of mobile developers because only few schools are teaching these skills. Today if graduates do not have mobile skills, they will have difficulty to get jobs as everything is changing to mobile as PC is no longer needed. The hottest skills are mobile app development and network security positions, and the demand keep increasing fast.”

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University