Technology analysts predict widening cloud skills gap for IT

By: Jennifer Warnick & Francine Fisher , MSW Editor, Academic Area Lead, Netherlands
Tags: employment, jobs, skills, technology, youth

Demand for “cloud-ready” IT workers will grow by 26 percent annually through 2015, with as many as 7 million cloud-related jobs available worldwide, according to an IDC White Paper sponsored by Microsoft Corporation and released today. Research projects as many as 7 million new cloud-related IT jobs globally by 2015, with fewer qualified candidates to fill open roles, according to global hiring managers.

However, IT hiring managers report that the biggest reason they failed to fill an existing 1.7 million open cloud-related positions in 2012 is because job seekers lack the training and certification needed to work in a cloud-enabled world, according to the IDC White Paper, Climate Change: Cloud’s Impact on IT Organizations and Staffing (November 2012).

The IDC White Paper investigates the impact that cloud computing will have on IT employment around the world and its influence on the way organizations staff their IT departments. IDC interviewed more than 600 hiring managers across the globe for this study.

General Findings.
General findings of the IDC White Paper include the following:

Globally, almost two-thirds of enterprises are planning, implementing or using cloud computing, and more than 50 percent of businesses agree that cloud computing is a high priority.
However, more than three-quarters of businesses have apprehension about the security, access or data control of cloud computing.
Lack of training, certification or experience are the top three reasons why cloud positions are not filled.
However, cloud-related skills represent virtually all the growth opportunities in IT employment worldwide and demand for cloud-related positions will grow by 26 percent annually through 2015.

Regional Findings

Regional findings of the IDC White Paper include the following:

Cloud-related IT jobs in Europe, Middle East and Africa EMEA are expected to grow by 24% per year to about 1.4 million by 2015
More than 40% of new cloud related IT jobs WW are anticipated to be in emerging markets, e.g. in Central Eastern Europe

Full results of the research, including additional details on global findings and survey methodology, can be found here.

Training and Certification Key to Overcoming the Lack of Cloud-Ready Workers
The shortage of appropriately skilled job candidates to fill cloud jobs is the No. 1 challenge for companies looking to bolster their cloud capabilities, according to the research.

“Cloud computing is crucial to the bottom line of the company — it creates cost savings and efficiencies for companies and their customers,” said IDC’s Anderson. “Therefore, a cloud-savvy workforce is essential to the success of the IT industry’s financial health. In anticipation of the technology evolution to the cloud, Microsoft recently announced that it reinvented certifications specifically for the cloud including the forthcoming certifications in Windows 8, which have cloud computing focus areas. These are more important than ever for current and future technologists who want to gain the skillset needed to work in the cloud and for companies looking to benefit from the cloud.”

Microsoft is helping fill the future workforce pipeline by providing training and certification through the Microsoft IT Academy. Ensuring that the next generation of technologists is prepared for the new IT jobs in the cloud, the Microsoft IT Academy is a subscription program that provides middle school, high school and college students with the technology-based skills needed for successful careers in tomorrow’s IT cloud environment. More details on IT Academy are available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/itacademy/default.aspx

“Our Microsoft Virtual Academy and Microsoft IT Academy are examples of our commitment to the current and future workforce,” said Lutz Ziob, general manager, Microsoft Learning. “The opportunity that the cloud presents is significant, and we want to be certain that the workforce has the skills to share in that opportunity. Our goal is to continue to prepare the existing workforce and students for the jobs of tomorrow and empower them to develop their skills as future IT experts, innovators, software developers and beyond.”

Actual job availabilities
To underline the findings from the IDC study above we did a quick search on January 16th 2013 on one job portal per country in some countries in Europe for the following key words; Virtualization (localized where needed), Cloud and Azure. These searches returned the following number of open positions, where the job post includes one or more of these key words;

Country	Job portal	Available jobs
Austria	www.monster.au	46
Belgium	www.monster.be (French)	77
Bulgaria	www.jobs.bg	30
Denmark	www.jobnet.dk	62
Czech Republic	www.monster.cz	21
Finland	www.monster.fi	6
France	www.monster.fr	238
Germany	www.monster.de	477
Hungary	www.monster.hu	11
Italy	www.infojobs.it	87
Ireland	www.monster.ie	157
Luxemburg	www.monster.lu (French)	15
Netherlands	www.monsterboard.nl	263
Norway	www.finn.no	290
Poland	www.monster.pl	26
Portugal	www.expressoemprego.pt	22
Romania	www.ejobs.ro	921
Spain	www.infojobs.es	214
Sweden	www.monster.se	40
Switzerland	www.monster.ch	23
United Kingdom	www.monster.uk	819
Total		3845 per January 16^th 2013