10 hottest IT skills for 2015

The pace of job growth in IT may be slowing down, but its still moving at a strong clip.
A healthy 24% of the respondents to Computerworlds 2015 Forecast survey said that their
companies plan to add more IT employees in the year ahead. While down from 32% and 33% in
the previous two years, the fact that a number of employers still anticipate growth indicates that
the prospects for expansion in the IT ranks are good.

Moreover, the kinds of technical skills in high demand are those needed for enterprises in
expansion mode, suggesting that organizations are continuing to invest in their IT infrastructures.
There are large initiatives [underway], and you have to have the people to get those done, says
Jason Hayman, market research manager at TEKsystems, an IT staffing and consulting firm.
Heres a look at the 10 IT skills that the 194 IT executives who responded to our survey said will
be most in demand heading into 2015.

1. Programming/application development
48% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 1
As was the case last year and the year before that, IT departments are more likely to have job
openings for programmers and developers than for any other position.
Programming certainly tops the list of skills sought by Blake K. Holman, senior vice president
and CIO at Ryan LLC, a Dallas-based tax services firm. Like many others, hes looking for
developers who can move his organization forward. But, given the demand, hes struggling to
find the talent he requires. Its been very difficult to find folks with good development skills,
he says, explaining that he can find workers with some development aptitude, but landing
programmers and developers with enough experience to handle the scale and complexity his
company demands is challenging.
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2. Project management
35% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 5

Demand for project managers jumped four spots up the list this year, and that doesnt surprise
Leon Kappelman, lead researcher for the Society for Information Managements (SIM) IT Trends
Study.

Darren Ghanayem
There is some catching up going on now, because there was so little investment in recent years,
he says, noting that companies need project managers who can oversee large projects that span
the enterprise. Darren Ghanayem, vice president and CIO in the commercial and specialty
business division of Indianapolis-based health benefits provider WellPoint, says the list of
complex initiatives on deck has created more demand for solid project management expertise.
That has him turning what were outsourced jobs into staff positions, and he, too, says finding the
right talent is challenging.
Good project managers need a mix of business and technology acumen along with the ability to
bridge those two areas, he says. They also need experience in leading teams using specific
methodologies, such as agile and waterfall. And Ghanayem specifically needs people who know
how to move a traditional waterfall shop to an agile one. Given such intense requirements, he
says its not surprising that demand for project managers is on the rise.

3. Help desk/technical support

30% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 2
IT leaders say they still have a growing need for help desk and technical support staffers because
ongoing projects expand the list of devices and applications that their departments must support.
Demand for this position is a function of growth, says Andrew C. Jackson, president and cofounder of BravoTech, a technology staffing firm in Dallas, and a member of the SIM
Management Council. Jackson notes that the growing number of companies adopting bring-yourown-device programs has also fueled the need for more support professionals, because both the
volume and variety of hardware and software within organizations is proliferating.

4. Security/compliance governance
28% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 7
Executives and board members are willing to spend more money on security because security
breaches are making headlines these days. SIMs research shows that IT departments are beefing
up their security ranks; security ranked seventh on the organizations list of most significant IT
investments for 2014.

Cynthia Nustad, enterprise vice president and CIO at HMS, an Irving, Texas-based provider of
cost containment services to healthcare payers, says organizations like hers face an everincreasing number of threats. So shes expanding her security team, which has already nearly
tripled in size during the past five years. She says shes seeking more specialized security talent;
the positions shes filling include one focused on incident management and another focused on
threats and vulnerabilities.
The demand to secure data is paramount, and the people who understand security the
architects, engineers or subject-matter experts are very hard to find, Nustad says.

5. Web development
28% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: Not ranked
Matt Leighton, director of recruitment at Mondo, a tech staffing agency, says that Web
development expertise is one of the hardest skill sets to find. The influx of demand has not been
met with the talent readily available there is a gap in terms of what the companies want to do
and the talent that is out there to execute these initiatives, he says.

6. Database administration
26% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 6
Database administration is a tried-and-true IT role one thats always needed in any
organization. But the buzz around big data is whats driving much of todays demand for people
with this skill. Youve got the ability to crunch massive amounts of data, but you still need to
understand how your database has been put together, says Terry Erdle, executive vice president
for certifications and learning at CompTIA, a wireless industry trade group.
In fact, IT staffing firm Robert Half Technologys latest IT Hiring Forecast and Local Trend
Report, released this past summer, found that 52% of U.S. technology executives listed database
management as the skill set in greatest demand within their IT departments.

7. Business intelligence/analytics
24% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 8
Given the enterprise interest in big data these days, its no surprise to see IT executives list BI
and analytics among their most sought-after skills. Jackson says BravoTech clients consistently
tell him theyre seeking people with BI and analytics expertise as they get more deeply involved

in data analysis projects. And respondents to the Computerworld Forecast survey who said they
plan to add IT positions in the next 12 months listed BI/analytics expertise as the skill set they
expect to have the hardest time finding.

8. Mobile applications and device management

24% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 4
Like many other IT executives, Paul R. Quinn, strategic execution officer and CIO at Duke
Realty in Indianapolis, is trying to keep up with demand for mobile apps from employees who
bring their own devices to work. So in an effort to broaden the ranks of in-house staffers with the
talent to meet that demand, hes both hiring new people and training existing staff members who
are interested in learning about mobile app development and device management.

9. Networking
22% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 3
According to the recent Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Forecast and Local Trend Report,
57% of U.S. technology executives said network administration tops the list of skills needed in
their organizations. Thats in line with the staffing needs at the University of Pennsylvania,
where IT leaders in the Information Systems & Computing department listed networking among
the seven skills that they need most. Theyre looking for people with expertise in IP routing,
switching, firewall filtering, packet capture and packet tracing/debugging, optical networking,
network management, and virtual environments and integration.

10. Big data

20% of respondents said they plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months.
Last years ranking: No. 11
In its September 2014 report titled Fastest-Growing Tech Skills, Dice reported that the number
of postings related to big data on its IT jobs site grew 56% year over year. Moreover, the
company noted that demand for big data expertise cuts across a number of industries, helping to
boost not only demand for people with the right skills, but pay as well. Data balloons every day,
and therefore the amount of information we need to sift through to get at the real nuggets of
value is exponentially bigger than it was a year ago, says HMSs Nustad. And the executive
teams awareness that the data brings value has created this surge in demand.

IT hiring: The tables have turned

The unemployment rate for IT professionals was just under 3% in September, according to the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And given that figure, many CIOs say they realize that finding
talent will be a tough and time-consuming endeavor.
As enterprise vice president and CIO at HMS, Nustad is trying to fill a number of positions
from a project manager to enterprise architects. She says she has expanded the search
nationwide, but its still taking months to find people for some positions.
At the same time, demand for experienced IT professionals is so high that she has had to
redouble her efforts to retain her talent, too.
Our access to free-agent talent, it just doesnt exist, she says. Youre gently poaching from
others, and protecting your turf.
According to Robert Half Technologys Hiring Index survey, 61% of CIOs believe its very or
somewhat challenging to find skilled IT professionals. The CIOs also reported that they expect to
encounter the most difficulty filling positions in application development, networking and
security. There is certainly a supply-demand imbalance in some IT specialties, says RHT
executive director John Reed.
On the other hand, when asked about business priorities for the coming 12 months, only 20% of
the respondents to Computerworlds 2015 Forecast survey said that they consider attracting new
talent a business priority. It ranked 10th on a list of 11 priorities for the upcoming year.
Some recruiters suggest that many hiring managers may be stuck in a recession-era mindset,
thinking that experienced talent is easier to come by than it really is.
Many hiring managers are very selective and only interested in applicants who possess all the
skills and attributes theyre seeking, which can make it more challenging to fill a position, Reed
says. The leaders who realize that IT talent trumps technology put hiring at the top of their
priority list and create the urgency and enforce the message that bringing on top talent is of the
utmost importance.