IT Skills Up, Up and Away

IT skills are in demand and increasingly scarce.

So says a report from The Wall Street Journal.

According to the report, companies across the U.S. economy last month hired IT workers at the sharpest pace in more than four years.

The number of new IT jobs in all industries expanded by an estimated 253K positions in February, the largest one-month gain since November 2015.

That pushed the unemployment rate for IT occupations down to 2.3 percent, and it was software/app developers, computer user support specialists and computer systems engineers and architects that continued to be the most in-demand tech skills sought by employers.

CompTIA, which conducted the research, indicated that blockchain, AI, machine learning, and other emerging tech skills were also helping to add to tech employment gains, with this categories increasing 74 percent last year.

The Journal cited staffing firm Robert Half International Inc. as also indicated more than 80 percent of some 2,800 tech-hiring decision makers at U.S. companies said finding talent was a challenge, and that the average CIO salary had hit $300,000 this year.

As Steve Ballmer used to scream, “Developers, developers, developers!”

You can start or continue to build your own tech skills at IBM Developer.

IBM’s 2012 Tech Trends Report: Skills, Skills, And More Skills!

Across the four technology areas covered in the 2012 IBM Tech Trends Report – mobile, business analytics, cloud and social business – only one in ten organizations has all the skills it needs. These shortages are not trivial or isolated. Within each area, roughly one-quarter report major skill gaps, and 60 percent or more report moderate to major shortfalls.

Okay boys and girls, it’s that time of year.

No, not the time for Saint Nicholas to come shooting down your chimneys to deliver lots of tablets and smartphones for Christmas.

That time will come soon enough.

No, I’m referring to the results from IBM’s third annual Tech Trends Report, where we talk to an extended sample of technology decision makers to find out what’s on their minds.

In 2010, I explained from the results that it was all about mobile and the cloud.

Last year, the headlines centered on IBM’s Watson technology and business analytics.

This year…while we wait for the drum roll, let me first tell provide you with some background about this year’s study.

About the 2012 IBM Tech Trends Report Study

The 2012 Tech Trends Report is based on a survey of more than 1,200 professionals who make technology decisions for their organizations (22 percent IT managers, 53 percent IT practitioners, and 25 percent business professionals), and who come from 16 different industries and 13 countries (which span both mature and growth markets).

IBM also surveyed more than 250 academics and 450 students across those same countries in order to better understand how tech trends are impacting future IT professionals.

The Headlines This Year: What’s Old Is New, And What’s New Is An Emerging Skills Gap

According to this year’s survey, what’s old is new. Mobile technology, business analytics, cloud computing, and social business continue to be emergent key themes. What’s new is this: Though new and exciting business possibilities are emerging from these new capabilities, significant IT skills shortages, combined with lingering security concerns, are threatening adoption and business progress.

By way of example, the survey revealed that only one in ten organizations has all the skills it needs, and within each of the four areas previously mentioned, roughly one-quarter of respondents report major skills gaps, and 60 percent or more report moderate to major shortfalls.

The skills shortage is more acute in mature markets, with roughly two-thirds of respondents indicating moderate to major shortages versus roughly half in growth markets.

With respect to security concerns, they consistently rank as the most significant barrier to adoption across mobile, cloud computing and social business.

The report observes that IT security is not just a technology concern, however. It’s a broad business issue with far-reaching policy and process implications, and notes that moving into mobile means organizations must address the increased risk of data loss and security breach, device management challenges, and complications introduced by the growing trend toward “bring-your-own-device” (BYOD).

In cloud computing, it calls for policies on employee use of public cloud services, segregation of data within shared or hybrid cloud solutions, and ensuring the right data is in the right place subject to the right controls.

In social business, organizations need to consider customer privacy expectations, regulatory compliance, and employee guidelines on confidentiality, acceptable use, and protecting the corporate brand.

Pay Attention To The Pacesetters

So with all this in mind, which organizations are better positioned to create competitive advantage? Early adopters or late arrivers? Those focused on strategic impact or tactical implementations?

The data suggest it’s those companies forging ahead faster (in spite of adoption hurdles) and using mobile, analytics, cloud, and social technologies in more strategic ways.

The so-called “pacesetters” believe emerging technologies are critical to their business success and are using them to enable new operating/business models.

They’re also adoption ahead of their competition.

What sets them apart from the “followers” and “dabblers” are three key factors: They’re more market driven, they’re more analytical, and they’re more willing to experiment.

And where they say they’re headed next also provides a learning opportunity.

More than 75 percent of pacesetters are increasing investments in mobile and cloud computing over the next two years, and they’re betting heavily on business analytics and social business (two to three times as many pacesetters are raising those investments by 10 percent or more).

With respect to skills, 70 percent of pacesetters are building capabilities in mobile integration, security, privacy, and mobile application architecture, design and development.

Twenty-eight percent have already developed business analytics expertise in probability, statistics and mathematical modeling (and another 60 percent are eagerly developing those capabilities).

In cloud computing, more than 70 percent are developing skills in cloud security, administration, and architecture.

The 2012 IBM Tech Trends Report data suggests an opportunity for organizations everywhere to help close the large and expanding technology skills gap. Is your organization prepared to take these important and often necessary actions?

And nearly one-quarter of them have already built the expertise needed to extend social business solutions to mobile and to perform social analytics.

Their intent to combined technologies — mobile and social, social and analytics, etc. — are helping drive even greater business value for their organizations.

The 2012 IBM Tech Trends Upshot?

CEOs understand the external factors impacting their organizations most: Technology and skills.

But one without the other is a recipe for innovative decline, and to effectively address these interconnected imperatives, business and IT executives need new approaches for bridging skills gaps and helping their organizations capitalize on the strategic potential of emerging technologies.

The figure to the right demonstrates specific actions that can help you as a leader move your organization into a pacesetting position.  And IBM is also stepping up and offering some new skills-building initiatives as well.

Bridging The Skills Gap

On the heels of this study, IBM has announced an array of programs and resources to help students and IT professionals develop new technology skills and prepare for jobs of the future.

The initiatives include new training courses and resources for IT professionals, technology and curriculum materials for educators and expanded programs to directly engage students with real-world business challenges.  You can learn more about those here.

IBM & Syracuse: Building Critical Software Development Skills

If you’ve been watching any of the Livestream coverage emerging from the IBM Innovate event down in Orlando, you know that skills is a key issue facing software development shops everywhere.  The need for new and changing skills, skills for new platforms and development languages, skills to help pull it all together.

Today, IBM made an announcement from Innovate that it is working to help address the skills issue in a new partnership with Syracuse University intended to help college students build computing skills to manage traditional and new systems in large global enterprises.

As business value creation increasingly shifts to software, the skills needed to tackle disruptive technologies like cloud and mobile computing, particularly for enterprise-class, large industrial systems, have become critical.

Lack of employee skills in software technologies is cited as the top barrier that prevents organizations from leveraging software for a competitive advantage, according to initial findings in IBM’s Institute for Business Value 2012 Global Study on Software Delivery.

And according to IBM’s 2012 Global CEO Study, including input from more than 1,700 Chief Executive Officers from 64 countries and 18 industries, a majority (71 percent) of global CEOs regard technology as the number one factor to impact an organization’s future over the next three years — considered to be an even bigger change agent than shifting economic and market conditions.  

Syracuse GETs Skills

Syracuse University’s Global Enterprise Technology (GET) curriculum is an interdisciplinary program focused on preparing students for successful careers in large-scale, technology-driven global operating environments.

IBM and a consortium of partners provide technology platforms and multiple systems experience for the GET students. IBM’s Rational Developer for System z (RDz) and z Enterprise Systems help students build applications on multiple systems platforms including z/OS, AIX, Linux and Windows.

“Our students need to build relevant skills to address the sheer growth of computing and Big Data,” said David Dischiave, assistant professor and the director of the graduate Information Management Program in the School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University. “These courses and the IBM technology platform help prepare students to build large global data centers, allow them to work across multiple systems, and ultimately gain employment in large global enterprises.”

Close to 500 students have participated in the Global Enterprise Technology minor since its inception. Syracuse University’s iSchool is the No. 1 school for information systems study, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, and serves as a model for other iSchools that are emerging around the globe.

Back To The Mainframe Future

More than 120 new clients worldwide have chosen the IBM mainframe platform as a backbone of their IT infrastructure since the IBM zEnterprise system was introduced in July 2010.

The zEnterprise is a workload-optimized, multi-architecture system capable of hosting many workloads integrated together, and efficiently managed as a single entity.

Syracuse University is a participant in IBM’s Academic Initiative and was a top ranked competitor in IBM’s 2011 Master the Mainframe competition.

As today’s mainframes grow in popularity and require a new generation of mainframe experts, the contest is designed to equip students with basic skills to make them more competitive in the enterprise computing industry job market.

IBM’s Academic Initiative offers a wide range of technology education benefits to meet the goals of colleges and universities. Over 6,000 universities and 30,000 faculty members worldwide have joined IBM’s Academic Initiative over the past five years.