The latest IBM Tech Trends survey of IT professionals reveals that cloud computing and mobile application development will provide the most career opportunities, followed by social media and business intelligence.
By Meridith Levinson | Mon, October 11, 2010 | CIO.com
Want to lock in some job security in IT over the next five years? Then make sure you’re poised to move into cloud computing or mobile application development. That’s where the IT jobs are expected to be, according to 2,000 IT professionals recently surveyed by IBM (IBM).IBM’s annual global Tech Trends survey identified cloud computing and mobile application development as the hottest tech trends and most sought-after IT skills for the next five years. An overwhelming majority of survey respondents (91 percent) expect cloud computing to overtake on-premise computing as the primary IT delivery model by 2015. More than half (55 percent) of survey respondents believe that in the same amount of time, the need to develop applications for mobile devices (such as Android, iPhone, iPad and PlayBook) will far surpass the need to develop software for traditional PCs and servers. These trends will impact IT jobs and the skills needed to do them.
New IT Skills for Data Center Workers
Because cloud computing changes the way users access IT systems and because it automates much of the installation, configuration, administration and maintenance work that traditional data center employees do, data center workers will need to learn a host of new skills if they wish to remain relevant and employed in the age of cloud computing, say IBM executives.