It’s a good time to be an IT professional. The demand for IT talent is far exceeding supply. Few IT professionals are out of work, the unemployment rate for tech workers is about 2% according to recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Computerworld’s Forecast for 2017 survey of 196 IT professionals found that both project management and technical support were among the top 10 most sought-after skills among survey respondents who said they plan on adding headcount in the new year.
Here’s a look at where the action will be in this year, with the top 10 most in-demand tech skills, according to the survey.
1. Programming/application development
2. Help desk/tech support
3. Security/compliance/governance
4. Cloud/SaaS
5. Business intelligence/analytics
6. Web development
7. Database administration
8. Project management
9. Big data
10. Mobile applications and device management
Developers and programmers continue to be leading players in the IT world, with hiring managers report programming and application development as the top skills they’ll seek in 2017.
As the Internet is the vehicle organizations use to connect employees, clients, partners, and customers it’s not surprising that web development jobs remain in staple role within IT teams.
Talented web developers continue to be in-demand as companies add social and mobile platforms to their portfolios.
According to Computerworld’s survey, companies want big data pros who can build out current data sets and have experience with specific technologies like Oracle and Hadoop. Companies are also looking for engineers and architects who know big-data-oriented computer languages, such as Scala.
And they want people with experience in specific industries, as industry experience helps big data professionals derive insights and value from the fire hose of data.
