Part 1 of a two-part "Skills of the Future" series identifies the skills that information technology (IT) managers project they will need over the next five years.
Part 2 reveals the largest single potential growth opportunity for Web technology professionals over the next five years.
Skills of the Future | Part 1
A global survey of more than 3,500 information technology (IT) managers identifies the current tech skills in demand and projects tech skills that will be needed over the next five years.
Power Shift
Respondents to the survey were asked to rate skills on a scale from one (lowest) to seven (highest). Currently, the three leading IT skills are the following (percentage of skills receiving a six or seven rating):
- security (74 percent)
- general networking (66 percent)
- operating systems (66 percent)
The survey reveals that the following skill will grow in importance over the next five years to become the number one most valuable IT skill:
- wireless & radio frequency (RF) mobile technology
In an interview with ComputerWorld, a survey spokesperson stated the following:
"The findings are a warning to educational institutions to prepare IT graduates with coursework in wireless topics, including standards, software and hardware."
In an interview with eWeek, the same spokesperson stated the following:
"We'd certainly advise any school with an engineering or technology program for students to add wireless components, because we're going to need it."
Other skills expected to grow in importance through 2013 include the following technologies:
- Web 2.0
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
- Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
- Ajax
Additional Survey Results
Survey participants said that the top two things IT departments should be doing to grow tech staffers' skills are as follows:
- sending them to external, professional training classes (42 percent)
- offering rewards for workers who enhance their skill sets (41 percent)
In addition, the most likely positions to open up over the next five years will include the following skills:
- programming
- coding
- developing
The study was commissioned by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) and conducted by The Center for Strategy Research, a Boston-based market research firm. A press release is available for review. To review comments about the survey findings, access a related Information Week article.
The Next Step
According to the survey programmers/coders/developers will prosper over the next five years. Web professionals can continue to increase their skill profile by becoming proficient in the following Web 2.0-related programming skills:
- JavaScript
- ActionScript
JavaScript is the foundation of Ajax and ActionScript is fundamental in creating Rich Internet Applications in a Adobe's Flash environment.
The Top 20 Skills (see right-hand column) related to these Web 2.0 technologies include the following:
- XML (#5)
- JavaScript (#7)
- Flash (#13)
- Ajax (#15)
Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR technologies, while not in high demand currently, are worth monitoring, along with Microsoft's Silverlight technology.
Go to >>> The Next Five Years | Part 2
