Hot topics, hot jobs?

harmeet singh

13 years ago

Earlier this year, my colleague Dave Webb pointed out that 2012 could be the year of the generalist here in Canada, with general IT functions and help desk support near the top of the list of skills in demand from ComputerWorld Canada’s annual salary survey.

Read his thoughts here.

Then just this week, staffing firm Robert Half released its survey results on CIO hiring plans for this quarter. Those surveyed maintain that networking and IT security professionals, along with help desk support are the most in demand in Q2. And, 65 per cent of those CIOs are struggling to find the right talent.

While those more traditional jobs are still in demand, where do the current hot topics stand when it comes to hiring and job opportunities? Here’s a round up of some recent stories:

Big data, big opportunity

Network World U.S. reported this week that big data means big career opportunities. It reported that a new title, “data scientist,” is already becoming highly-sought in some areas:

“Unheard of 18 months ago, ‘data scientist’ has exploded in popularity as a Google search term. The number of Google searches of “data scientist” hit peaks 20 times higher than normal in the last quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012. It's a popular search term in high-tech hotspots such as San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and New York,” it reported.

Yay cloud jobs?

Microsoft and IDC reported this week that cloud computing will create 14 million jobs by 2014, mostly in emerging markets. In Canada and the U.S., “(m)any of those jobs will be from IT pros being freed up from managing the day-to-day service of their IT infrastructure, which will allow them to focus on more “mission critical” business endeavors,” one journalist reported.

BYOD (you knew it was coming)

One Computerworld U.S. reporter wrote late last month that mobile BYOD will change the IT skills in demand by creating new roles and reinvent old ones, which I can’t say is that controversial an opinion. The role of the traditional network administrator, for example, would change dramatically, and jobs such as user experience designers and mobility managers will become more critical.