Published on the 04/03/2021 | Written by Jonathan Cotton

What does a year of both creation and destruction for business mean for the job market?…

As we settle into 2021 – if you call two Auckland lockdowns in a month ‘settled’ – there’s a new business landscape out there for techies looking to boss up their career. After all, with the radical changes in the way we live, work and shop brought by the pandemic, demand for IT professionals is huge.

So what’s hot in the IT jobs market?

According to recruiting giant Hays, security, cloud, data and development is where it’s at 2021, both globally and locally.

Cyber
As remote and mixed working environments push IT security to its limits – and as generalised Covid-19 chaos continues to upend traditional modes of working – experts in cybersecurity are in hot demand. According to a report from the International Information System Security Certification Consortium, as it stands, employment in cybersecurity would have to grow 89 percent globally to meet security requirements.

Demand in this area will be acute and supply will be limited

“It’s going to be a challenge to fill all of the new vacancies, as an estimated 3.1 million professionals will be required in the next 12 months to bridge the global cybersecurity talent gap,” says James Milligan, global head of tech at Hays.

“Cybersecurity will account for many of the fastest-growing jobs for tech professionals in 2021, including security operations; governance, risk and compliance; identity and privileged access management; cloud security and architecture. As teams expand, other jobs in demand will include leadership roles such as chief or manager of information security.”

Cloud experts
According to one survey, more than 80 percent of global IT leaders have increased their use of cloud as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. And that shift to the cloud has been rapid for many, leading to substandard rollouts, all in the name of business continuity.

“Circumstances at the onset of the pandemic meant that initial migrations were typically very quick in order to get all employees online as soon as possible,” says Milligan.

“Therefore, organisations now need to take the time to ensure these systems are robust and as optimised as they could and should be.”

For cloud engineers and cloud architects job-hunting in 2021, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are the two primary skills, with about 80 percent market share.

“I predict that demand in this area will be acute and supply will be limited, so it’s certainly a hot area to be working in.”

Data scientists
With the rise of smart devices, sensor tech and digital everything, someone needs to analyse all that complex data.

“Changes in the way we live our everyday lives have led to many of us placing greater reliance on our devices, meaning organisations have even more data available to them. And with more data comes the need for more people to analyse it,” says Milligan.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2020, data analysts and scientists are the fastest growing demand segment across all industries.

“Data analysts and data scientists will be high on the list of the hottest tech jobs over the coming 12 months… After all, a core element of any platform is the insights it can provide, and organisations need data people for that.

“The important role data science plays within businesses has increased dramatically in recent years, as analysing and interpreting complex data helps organisations make informed and timely decisions.”

Developers, developers, developers
It’s tech that powers modern businesses, and from the front-end to the back, developers will be in demand this year as organisations look to create new products, tools and services in response to the shifting business landscape.

“Those developers working for tech organisations – organisations which provide essential products, services or tools which consumers will always need in this new world – will be particularly high in demand,” says Milligan.

“It’s important to note, too, that these software development roles will also be absolutely crucial in enabling organisations to innovate to solve the many new problems that have emerged as a result of the pandemic.”

Similarly, the demand for DevOps will remain high too.

“Many more organisations now have a DevOps team than was the case just a few years ago, so there will continue to be jobs in demand in this field, such as platform, build, and reliability engineers.

“In fact, there’s been a 40 to 45 per cent growth in the market over the last five years, with DevOps Zone predicting this will rise even higher.”