What you should know if you’re job hunting or IT recruiting.
In the IT world, you may be forgiven if there are a few things you haven’t heard of. The sector moves so fast that new developments in tech – and the roles designed to implement them – are appearing at a rapid pace. It’s slowly becoming apparent that sooner or later every business will need an IT staff on their team; IT talent who’ll be critical for success in a digital future.
Whether you’re looking to hire or be hired, it pays to know which IT skills are in demand right now and what employers will need tomorrow. We’ve compiled a list of the 5 hottest IT skills and job titles to help you stay informed and competitive.
IT skill number 1 – cloud architect
The cloud is a superstore of data and information that’s now a core part of businesses around the world. Microsoft, Google, Intel, and Amazon all rely on it to remain market leaders, so if you or your team have the skill to shape the cloud, then you’re looking at big salaries and bigger business rewards.
Cloud architects oversee their company’s cloud strategy; an inclusive role that requires managing application design, adoption of new Cloud technologies such as serverless computing and working with the private and public cloud.
Add to this a cloud architect’s ability to guide projects and build client and employee relations while speaking multiple code languages, and you have something approaching an IT superhero. If you can hire one, you’re looking at a bright future.
IT skill number 2 – data miner and predictive analyzer
From having our heads in the cloud, we move back to earth with the importance of data mining and predictive analysis. While the cloud can provide storage and access to a staggering amount of data sets, that same data can overwhelm a business with too much information. When there’s a landslide of facts and figures, it’s the data miner who will dig in and pull out the information a business really needs.
A data miner’s job is to examine often-chaotic data sets to identify systematic relationships or consistent patterns among variables. When such patterns emerge, they can be used to predict outcomes and better drive business policy.
As the name implies, predictive analysis isn’t an exact science. On the other hand, a sector moving at lightning speed means no one can really be sure what’s coming next. If you can hire a data miner, you can analyze patterns and potential trends which just might give you a head start on tomorrow.
IT skill number 3 – systems integration engineer
When you’re running a business, it must do just that: run. Every part of the system from software and hardware to security must operate smoothly and in tandem. If one area of the system breaks down, it can take the whole model down with it.
This is where the systems integration engineer comes in. What’s demanding for the systems integration engineer and beneficial to the company is that this role requires constant learning. Many system integration issues arise when older, obsolete tech must be coupled with or replaced by newer systems.
The systems integration engineer must be up to speed with what the new tech is, what it does, and how it will impact the existing system. In many cases, this integration may not go smoothly, and the systems integration engineer must use their IT skills to create middleware – a coding language that is effectively a glue connecting all parts of the system together.
This role can provide another type of glue: diplomacy in stopping departments from falling apart as the system undergoes integration.
IT skill number 4 – data warehouser
It can be said that a data warehouser and a data miner make a great team. Where the data miner will analyze big data for patterns, it’s the data warehouser who gathers the data all together in the first place. A data warehouse is a bigger place than a database, and it offers wider scope, namely the ability to report on and analyze data from multiple sources.
A data warehouser is important in IT recruiting because they marshal information from one or more databases into a single location; one that lends itself perfectly to analytics. A typical transactive database wouldn’t have the power to provide the raw material for data miners to examine, so the data warehouser is more than your typical database manager.
IT skill number 5 – data visualizer
The data visualizer is akin to the data miner: the data miner uncovers significant patterns and possible trends while the data visualizer makes sure it can be presented visually.
This IT skill can range from presenting classic pie charts, line graphs, and dashboards to more sophisticated displays such as heat maps (a color-rich method which replaces numerical values with different shades) and sparklines (a small line chart embedded among data to visually illustrate the numbers).
A data visualizer is crucial in breaking down what needs to be known so that people at all levels of a business can grasp what’s happening; not just the IT staff. Visuals reinforce human information processing and help solidify business concepts that may run the risk of being abstract.
The IT skills of data visualizers are an invaluable asset to a business. They can perform internally to assist data miners and predictive analysts in monitoring perceived trends, while also taking any worthwhile data to the boardroom or public to demonstrate the findings.
These 5 IT skill are currently the most in-demand tech skills for 2018. If your business is looking for IT talent and needs the perfect solution, we’re here to make that happen.
At Consultis Information Technology, we’ve been delivering first-class project solutions, technical search, and contract services since 1984. To tell us how we can help, contact us today.