Andrea Malcolm
Computerworld New Zealand Online
Research by recruitment and training company Spherion Recruitment Solutions Pty Ltd. suggests that experience in Microsoft Corp.’s .Net platform could be the most in-demand IT skill in coming months.
Spherion has measured skills sought by employers and enrolments in professional IT and professional development courses across Australia and New Zealand from January to March 2003. It says there is growing interest in training for .Net and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL, a standard and methodology for establishing IT management processes).
The head of the New Zealand .Net user group, Lukas Svoboda, says .Net experts are thin on the ground.
“I could count on both hands the number of really good, high-level people there are in New Zealand.”
The user group has 500 members.
Demand from employers for Java, SQL (Structured Query Language) and Visual Basic programming skills remained strong throughout the last quarter, Spherion says, with a trend towards acquiring skills in specific packages such as SAP, Lotus Notes and Access.
From January to March, the most popular internet skills sought by employers continued to be XML (Extensible Markup Language), HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), SQL and Java. Last week TMP/Hudson was advertising fourteen .Net-related jobs, Monster.co.nz listed nine, JobUniverse seven and Spherion three, all in Australia.